Marathon of Czech Architecture in Sarajevo

After the Marathons of Czech Architecture in Belgrade, Bratislava, and Berlin, this year the project continues in Sarajevo, a city where Czech architecture expanded at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries.

The main exhibition will be Generations +, with the opening on November 14 at 18:00. Following this, the local audience will be shown the film Eye Above Prague. The main part of the Marathon is a symposium planned for November 15, 2014, at the Historical Museum in Sarajevo.

We have chosen to present Czech architecture through the statements of Czech architects about their own work and the state of architecture in the republic. The exhibition prioritizes a personal selection of the architects' own works over documenting and presenting freshly completed buildings. The aim of the project is not to build on the romantic position that Czech architecture once had in Bosnia and Herzegovina, but primarily to familiarize the audience with the post-revolutionary work and the state of the architectural scene at home. The project is set as a kind of mutual mirror, where the Bosnian-Herzegovinian young architectural scene can be seen against the backdrop of Czech architectural production. Conversely, for Czech architecture, it will be a question of how contemporary Czech production resonates abroad.

As guests, we have invited both Czech and Bosnian architects. From the Czech Republic, there are Jaroslav Wertig from the Prague studio A69 and Michal Palaščák from Brno. From Bosnia and Herzegovina, there is Maja Roso Popovac, who studied architecture in Prague at the turn of the millennium and, upon returning to Mostar, participated in the reconstruction of the Mostar Bridge, as well as Vedad Islambegović from the Filter studio. The moderator of the symposium will be Armina Pilav.

Generations+ 

„We rejected today’s trend in exhibiting architecture, which arises from the presentation of realizations through professionally polished photographs, visualizations, and projections. We do not want to convey images of buildings or views of interiors through photographic media. Our interest has focused on the ideas of the authors that form the oral history of Czech architecture from the second half of the twentieth century to the present.”
Igor Kovačević

Generations+ is a research project of the Centre for Central European Architecture (CCEA) focused on mapping the works and opinions of three generations of Czech architects: the 50+ generation, whose members experienced their studies and much of their practice under a totalitarian regime, the 40+ generation, whose members were educated during the normalization period, when they also entered practice, which, however, continued after the revolution in the conditions of a market economy, and finally, the 30+ generation, whose members studied and entered practice in a democratic state.

At the start of the research, there was a question of whether there exists a common denominator in contemporary Czech architecture in the form of “generational ties,” or whether it is characterized by “generational gaps” caused by different socio-political conditions over the last fifty years in which Czech architects have worked and continue to work.

Oral history of Czech architecture
The Generations+ project is based on authentic testimonies from individual architects. The statements of the represented authors touch on the political changes of recent decades from both professional and personal perspectives, architectural education, questions of authority in the field, the quality of theoretical thinking about it, and the position of the architect in today's neoliberal society. Personal observations are accompanied by the presented works.

The number of works presented by individual architects depends on their generational affiliation: architects from the 50+ generation were invited by the CCEA curators to select three realizations from their previous work that they consider groundbreaking – whether from a professional or personal standpoint. The architects of the 40+ generation selected two realizations, while the 30+ generation selected one.

In addition to completed projects, the exhibition also presents unrealized projects – unbuilt houses or unrealized competitions, both won and lost, as it is often in them that authenticity and a freer architectural viewpoint are expressed. Unrealized projects are represented by three works from each of the three generations. The exhibition also includes diploma projects of the represented architects, which generally remain concealed from the public but can show the conditions under which they studied and offer the possibility of comparison with the further direction of their work.

Although architecture, unlike other arts, cannot be created independently, the CCEA curators have decided to present Czech architects as individuals – not as stars of the domestic scene but as creators who present their own positions that are not misinterpreted by the will of investors, officials, or other limits that architecture is constrained by.

The project does not want to be “a walk through contemporary Czech architecture.” It aims to serve as a basis for reflections on the position of the architect, on the responsibility of the profession towards society. At the same time, it aims to contribute to breaking the established notion that engaging an architect for collaboration means an unattainable luxury – for this reason, the curators decided to familiarize the visitor with the architect “personally”: with their opinions, their work, and their likeness. The exhibition includes life-size photographs of all the represented authors.

Three architecture theorists were invited to collaborate on the selection of architects representing the generations: Rostislav Koryčánek – generation 50+, Jana Tichá – generation 40+, Adam Gebrian – generation 30+.

List of exhibitors
50+: 16 architects – Mirko Baum, Jan Bočan, Josef Kiszka, Ivan Koleček, Ladislav Lábus, Jan Línek, Miroslav Masák, Vlado Milunić, Josef Pleskot, Martin Rajniš, Viktor Rudiš, Jiří Suchomel, Petr Suske, Jaroslav Šafer, Alena Šrámková, David Vávra
40+: 19 architects – Markéta Cajthamlová, Jakub Cigler, Stanislav Fiala, Zdeněk Fránek, Jan Jehlík, Milan Jirovec, Roman Koucký, Pavla Kordovská, Michal Kohout, Radek Kolařík, Petr Malinský, Antonín Novák, Luboš Pata, Petr Pelčák, Tomáš Prouza, Alexandr Skalický, Ján Stempel, Jaroslav Zima, Ivan Wahla
30+: 18 architects – Kamila Amblerová, Martina Buřičová, Adam Halíř, Pavel Hnilička, Marek Chalupa, Petr Janda, David Kraus, Kamil Mrva, Pavel Nasadil, Osamu Okamura, Jitka Ressová, Jan Schindler, Svatopluk Sládeček, Markéta Smrčková, Marcela Steinbachová, Prokop Tomášek, Petr Uhlík, Yvette Vašourková