Opening of the exhibition 2x100 million m² at La Biennale di Venezia 2014
On June 6, we had the honor of opening the national exhibition in the Czechoslovak pavilion in Venice, Italy, at the 14th Architecture Biennale, which this year is curated by Rem Koolhaas. At the same time, a book titled 2x100 mil.m² Atomized Modernity - on architecture of large housing complexes in Czechoslovakia 1914-2014 was presented, produced by the studio KOLMO.eu, led by Martin Hejl, the curator of the national exhibition.
The last 100 years are predominantly a shared history of Czechoslovakia; therefore, the exhibition in the Czech pavilion is an exhibition about the common history of two now autonomous states. We reached out to universities, urban planners, and architects from both countries to collaborate on data collection.
The Czechoslovak pavilion is the last shared territory of both states, hence the last remnant of the now non-existent Czechoslovakia. We highlighted this fact in collaboration with Tomáš Džadoň by swapping the order of names of both states above the entrance to the pavilion.
Map:
We decided to closely monitor universal architecture in Czechoslovakia over the last 100 years. This involves housing in its three fundamental phases—standardization 1914-1948, prefabrication 1948-1989, and cataloging after the 1989 revolution. We document this development on a large map of the 56 largest Czechoslovak cities, marking residential complexes built over the past 100 years. It is surprising that 90% of all residential buildings were constructed during this period.
6 Residential complexes:
From this universe of housing, we selected 6 key large residential complexes and displayed them sequentially on the walls. Baťa's Zlín, the Sorela in Ostrava-Poruba, the newly relocated Most, Bratislava's Petržalka as the largest housing estate in Central Europe, the postmodern Velká Ohrada in Prague, and the post-revolutionary satellite in Jesenice near Prague reveal the journey from individual housing in standardized family homes through collective panel construction to again individual cataloged suburbia today. This journey from house to house describes changes in the fundamental urban template.
Diagram of the evolution of universal architecture:
The third complementary element is a totem—a 3D diagram of the evolution of prefabrication from Baťa's house to the last constructed panel house VVÚ ETA in Velká Ohrada, which was replaced after the revolution by the most popular catalog house Alfa. By grouping these elements, we create a basic algebra that can represent 97% of the housing marked on the map.
The question arises: what is the role of the architect in designing this mass? Therefore, we mobilized a series of 16 interviews with historians, engineers, urban planners, and creators of these 6 highlights, which will be published as a book titled 2x100 mil.m² - Atomized Modernity. We hope this will open a critical debate about the role of the architect in the construction of the majority urban substance today, or how to deal with what has already been built.
The exterior of the pavilion, which this year is titled Slovakia Ceco, is enlivened by two restored original children's playgrounds, which were installed in the 1960s to 1980s in most prefabricated residential complexes.
The exhibition is open to the public from June 7 to November 23, 2014, from 10:00 AM to 6:00 PM, except Mondays.
Curator: Ing.arch.Martin Hejl + KOLMO.eu
Collaborators: atelier Lenka Hejlova and Martin Hejl FUA TUL, atelier Jan Studeny and Benjamin Brádňanský, and atelier Petr Stec and Vita Halada VŠVU in Bratislava, studio d+g+g, Jan Šrámek, Tomáš Džadoň, Alexey Klyuykov, Cyril Říha, Mikuláš Macháček, Linda Dostálková and others.
With kind support from:
Ministry of Culture of the Czech Republic
Ministry of Culture of Slovakia
National Gallery in Prague
Slovak National Gallery
Czech Architecture Foundation
CTU
Slovak Academy of Sciences
translation agency Skřivánek
Institute of Planning and Development of the Capital City of Prague
National Technical Museum
Archive of the City of Ostrava
The last 100 years are predominantly a shared history of Czechoslovakia; therefore, the exhibition in the Czech pavilion is an exhibition about the common history of two now autonomous states. We reached out to universities, urban planners, and architects from both countries to collaborate on data collection.
The Czechoslovak pavilion is the last shared territory of both states, hence the last remnant of the now non-existent Czechoslovakia. We highlighted this fact in collaboration with Tomáš Džadoň by swapping the order of names of both states above the entrance to the pavilion.
Map:
We decided to closely monitor universal architecture in Czechoslovakia over the last 100 years. This involves housing in its three fundamental phases—standardization 1914-1948, prefabrication 1948-1989, and cataloging after the 1989 revolution. We document this development on a large map of the 56 largest Czechoslovak cities, marking residential complexes built over the past 100 years. It is surprising that 90% of all residential buildings were constructed during this period.
6 Residential complexes:
From this universe of housing, we selected 6 key large residential complexes and displayed them sequentially on the walls. Baťa's Zlín, the Sorela in Ostrava-Poruba, the newly relocated Most, Bratislava's Petržalka as the largest housing estate in Central Europe, the postmodern Velká Ohrada in Prague, and the post-revolutionary satellite in Jesenice near Prague reveal the journey from individual housing in standardized family homes through collective panel construction to again individual cataloged suburbia today. This journey from house to house describes changes in the fundamental urban template.
Diagram of the evolution of universal architecture:
The third complementary element is a totem—a 3D diagram of the evolution of prefabrication from Baťa's house to the last constructed panel house VVÚ ETA in Velká Ohrada, which was replaced after the revolution by the most popular catalog house Alfa. By grouping these elements, we create a basic algebra that can represent 97% of the housing marked on the map.
The question arises: what is the role of the architect in designing this mass? Therefore, we mobilized a series of 16 interviews with historians, engineers, urban planners, and creators of these 6 highlights, which will be published as a book titled 2x100 mil.m² - Atomized Modernity. We hope this will open a critical debate about the role of the architect in the construction of the majority urban substance today, or how to deal with what has already been built.
The exterior of the pavilion, which this year is titled Slovakia Ceco, is enlivened by two restored original children's playgrounds, which were installed in the 1960s to 1980s in most prefabricated residential complexes.
The exhibition is open to the public from June 7 to November 23, 2014, from 10:00 AM to 6:00 PM, except Mondays.
Curator: Ing.arch.Martin Hejl + KOLMO.eu
Collaborators: atelier Lenka Hejlova and Martin Hejl FUA TUL, atelier Jan Studeny and Benjamin Brádňanský, and atelier Petr Stec and Vita Halada VŠVU in Bratislava, studio d+g+g, Jan Šrámek, Tomáš Džadoň, Alexey Klyuykov, Cyril Říha, Mikuláš Macháček, Linda Dostálková and others.
With kind support from:
Ministry of Culture of the Czech Republic
Ministry of Culture of Slovakia
National Gallery in Prague
Slovak National Gallery
Czech Architecture Foundation
CTU
Slovak Academy of Sciences
translation agency Skřivánek
Institute of Planning and Development of the Capital City of Prague
National Technical Museum
Archive of the City of Ostrava
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