Interview with Petr Stolín

The Archiweb Award for 2014 went to Liberec's Petr Stolín, who has been active in the Czech architectural scene for more than three decades. In his designs, one can find common motifs that run through as a line with constant quality. A native of Svitavy and a graduate of the Brno University of Technology, he eventually settled under Pavel Švancer at Stavoprojekt in Liberec and later with Karel Hubáček at SIAL. In the early '90s, he managed to design several significant social and educational buildings in the Liberec region together with Zdeněk Jiran. He won the Building of the Year award for the Liberec region twice in a row. Currently, his own experimental house ZEN has gained attention, in which he operates the CUBE LOVE studio together with Alena Mičeková. Petr Stolín sets an example that quality architecture does not have to be complicated or expensive.

Was there a difference in the quality of life between your hometown of Svitavy and the nearby Litomyšl at the time you decided to study architecture?
At that time, there was almost no difference between these cities. Svitavy was slightly better off; it was a district town. The situation, however, was not simple at all. When I was applying to high school from the ninth grade in 1973, my class teacher had to write a negative assessment by order of the District Committee of the Communist Party, which meant I could not get accepted to the high school in Svitavy or anywhere else in what was then the East Bohemian region. The reason was that my parents supposedly behaved inappropriately during the invasion of Russian troops in 1968. Although I passed the entrance exams for high school, I was not allowed to be admitted.

Architecture schools were very selective at that time.
There was always pressure to study architecture. Across the entire republic, there were only three places to apply: Prague, Brno, and Bratislava. Nothing else was available. However, at that time, I wasn’t even considering architecture.
When I was barred from high school, I went to Liberec, where my uncle found me a job and an apprenticeship in a construction company, and I worked as a mason there for a year. The training alternated weekly between a vocational school in Frýdlant and working on the construction site. After a year, I lost interest in high school, as I had gained enough experience as a mason and decided to take the entrance exams for a secondary construction school in Liberec.

Which was once attended by Adolf Loos.
Yes, but we never crossed paths... I spent another two years there. Liberec had a magical effect on me. Out of consideration for my parents, I wanted to move closer to Svitavy, so I transferred to a secondary school in Brno on Kudelova Street, which had very strict rules compared to Liberec.

I graduated from the same secondary school and I believe I drew a lot from it for a long time. What led you to study at VUT, and what did you take away from there?
I had to catch up on a lot of things, which didn’t bother me at all; on the contrary, I became very interested in architecture and have not abandoned it to this day. I was accepted to VUT on my first try. Given the proximity to Svitavy, I didn’t apply anywhere else. In case of failure, people went to the construction school or the faculty of education.

Was it customary to do internships?
It was not customary, and no one required it either. At that time, there were only large design institutes (Stavoprojekt, Metroprojekt, Military Construction), where qualified architects would go after finishing school.

I mistakenly place you among the generation of graduates around the Velvet Revolution.
I finished at the Brno Faculty of Architecture in 1983.

You all then went your separate ways to different design offices. Did any connections remain among classmates?
Among my excellent classmates were Zdeněk Jiran, Libor Sošťák, who kind of got lost in the hills of Vsetín, and a big driving force was Honza Sapák, who was already interested in the preservation of modern functionalist architecture at that time. Together, we explored the Tugendhat House and made models of Loos's houses. In the end, eighty of us graduated, and everyone immediately dispersed across the republic.

What drew you to Liberec after school? A posting or the aura of SIAL?
By that time, postings no longer existed, but I first got married in Ostrava. Specifically, to Jeremenkova Street in Bílovec, where Emil Přikryl is from and where he built several family houses. Zdeněk Jiran (Studio 03) went directly to Stavoprojekt Liberec, and Honza Sapák (Studio 02) took a detour through AVU to get to Liberec. At Stavoprojekt, people admired Hubáček and Masák on the sixth floor. I worked for a while at Elektroprojekta Ostrava, but soon I moved my whole family to Liberec, where I worked at Studio 01, which Pavel Švancer was leading at that time. Moreover, those three years in secondary school left a strong impression on me, and I just sensed that I belonged in Liberec.

That’s where the Velvet Revolution caught you, after which everyone started founding their own studios?
At the beginning of the '90s, Stavoprojekt was winding down and breaking into smaller groups. Also, we, along with Josef Patrný, Radim Kousal, and Tomáš Charvát, simultaneously created EA studio (Studio of European Architecture); however, it did not go in a direction I wanted, so I remained only with Hubáček at Sial. Many young architects at that time, like Němec, Štempl, Jiran, and Buček, tried to create a new SIAL, but it ultimately did not succeed. After returning from America, Jiří Suchomel took over the management of SIAL, with whom we collaborated on several competitions throughout Europe.

The '90s must have been a golden and hectic time when you won several competitions for large state contracts.
After leaving SIAL, I opened my own office on Prague Street in Liberec, and Zdeněk Jiran had a joint practice in Prague with Bouřil, Kohout, and Máslo. With this group, we won the competition for the school in Železný Brod. During its implementation, Bouřil and Máslo left to build a library in Semily. There was a great atmosphere in Železný Brod. At that time, Stanislav Libenský was still visiting, who was a legend in his field. We were lucky to have a wonderful director, Pavel Ježek, who gave us a lot of room to work and absolute trust, thanks to which the glassworks could be restored and new studios could be created in the attic.

After large contracts at the beginning of the '90s, I then have a ten-year gap. What happened?
Together with Zdeněk Jiran and builder František Čejka from Stavoprojekt, we still built a House with a Care Service in Ruprechtice, for which we received the Grand Prix in 1996. After that, Jiran and Kohout moved on to their own Prague projects. My biggest contract was the site of the secondary vocational school on Jablonecká Street, where good cooperation with the school's management was confirmed again.

After several realizations in your native Svitavy, you remain a Liberec patriot, where you have most of your realizations, which, however, highly exceed the regional scope and even involve international cooperation, which brings me to the story of Ermeg.
The owner of Ermeg, Pavel Jelínek, received references about Franta Sedláček, who returned from Germany after a long time to design a new company headquarters on Žitavská Street, and he needed the support of a local architect to help him negotiate with the local authorities.
Sedláček, who had taught for many years at a university in Germany, had a bohemian appearance, Le Corbusier glasses, and a red scarf but also had health problems, which made it very difficult for him to walk up 99 stairs to our attic studio for consultations. He is the father of Ermeg, who gave the project its soul. However, during the realization, architect Sedláček passed away, and Mr. Jelínek asked us to complete the building, and we did everything possible to make it look as Franta Sedláček would probably have wished.

Ermeg eventually grew dear to you, and you operated your studio there for several years before moving to zen houses.
Previously, we always occupied large spaces. Whether it was an apartment in a villa on Mozartová Street of 180m² or the whole upper floor of Ermeg at 150m². Gradually, I began to realize that living in such large areas only led to the accumulation of unnecessary things. I wanted to free myself from all the burdens and minimize my needs.
This simplification was helped by the Swedish duo Elding Oscarson, who spent a long time in Japan, and when they returned home, they built their own house with a studio in this spirit. They believe that the living room must be empty to create space for thoughts. This fascinated us greatly, and we decided not only to design this way but also to live this way.

And because you couldn’t find any clients, you decided to try this concept on yourselves?
It is hard to find clients for this way of living. We had to try it ourselves. At that time, we said that the limit for room width could not be less than three meters. Now we sit in a room that is 258 centimeters wide, and I don’t feel cramped at all. The whole idea came from the cheapest prefabrication possible, which would allow people to acquire a house for the price of a small apartment in a panel house. A total of five projects were created, aimed at people who prefer to surround themselves with their own thoughts rather than things.

It should be mentioned that you collaborate with your brother, with whom you work on interiors and graphic designs. Honza Stolín is, after all, a significant conceptual artist and curator of several galleries. When did your collaboration begin?
The first was the memorial to the fighters and victims for the freedom of the homeland in Liberec, for which we received the Grand Prix in 2000. My brother is eight years younger, he trained as a ceramicist in Litomyšl, graduated from high school in Bratislava, and started attending the Prague UMPRUM in 1988, where Kurt Gebauer taught him after the revolution. He studied sculpture there together with David Černý, Rony Plesl, and Maxim Velčovský. At that time, I was already working at Stavoprojekt in Liberec. My brother was watching me closely, and after school, he decided to move in with me, where he started teaching with Jirka Dostál at the art school in Jablonec and gradually got a position as Zippe's assistant at the Liberec school of architecture, where he now leads his own studio.
The collaboration on projects developed organically. When a sculptor, who knows little about architecture, speaks into the design but has a feeling for it, and the architect starts to perceive him, both fields begin to intertwine. The opinions of one push the other forward. It is a dialogue over a shared work.
The Liberec memorial was created very tumultuously through a direct assignment from the city. Where the monumental Stalin Memorial used to stand, later stood Mother and Child by Jiří Seifert, and later again a Russian soldier. The city expected us to use this heavy totalitarian base and place something new on it. We said no. Even if it were to be the only thing we do in that place, we would eliminate this bombastic Gottwaldov monument and prevent further layering of senseless burdens.
The memorial was approved by the association of fighters for the freedom of the homeland who fought on various fronts and at different times. Monika Mitášová, who taught at the school at the time, was our theoretical support, which helped us convince the otherwise divided composition of the committee. We had the entire monumental base removed, and we brought in a lot of soil to create a terrain mound without marked paths. We considered this already a sufficient success, but they still pushed us to create some kind of memorial after all. And here came my brother's big moment. Originally, the memorial was not meant to be visible at all or to be made as inconspicuous as possible. In the end, the main motives became the intangible wind, light, and text. At the same time, this left ample room for personal interpretation. We then settled this idea into the architectural form of two simple cuboids. The result was salt in the wounds of almost all Liberec residents. During the ceremonial opening, everyone was grinding their teeth, and we had to repeat the main idea endlessly. Surprisingly, abroad, the memorial was received positively. Thus, my collaboration with my brother probably began, where he brought artistic impulses that I settled into architectural forms.
This was followed by the information center in Svitavy, where Jirka Brýdl was mayor, who was the brother of the mayor of Litomyšl, Mirek Brýdl. He returned as a senator and didn't want to be outdone by his brother. He invited us as native Svitavy residents and also as our former athletic coach. Under the previous mayor, I had proven myself with the renovation of the farm buildings, which came from a legitimate competition, and subsequently we were invited to also tackle the former coach house, which today serves as the center of Oscar Schindler. In this project, besides my brother, former student Honza Mach also contributed, who came up with the main idea of building a house within a house, and my brother with a spatial installation of neon lights that, when viewed from below, formed fragments into a Jewish star. There are also inscriptions, interactive light, and sound recordings placed on the inserted box, again authored by my brother. A year later, we continued to collaborate on the cultural center project in Vratislavice. Our last collaboration was on a private gallery of contemporary art Cube x Cube in Kryštof's Valley.

Now you have reached a teaching position, having taught at FUA during the summer semester. What experiences did you take away from it?
I didn't want to teach much, although Docent Zippe had been tempting me to the school since around 2000. I long resisted. I had an ongoing practice and was afraid that the academic side could pull me away too much from my projects. When Zdeněk Fránek also began to insist, I thought, why not? At this moment, I feel that I have something to give, and at the same time, I could enrich myself with new experiences. If there is a chance, I would be happy to take this opportunity again. Perhaps because I felt how much the students enjoyed it. However, it was not a completely new experience, as young students came to me for practice. My studio became a through station for young beginning architects (Petr Štefek, Miroslav Hujer, Jan Mach, Jan Gašparík, Karel Trachta, Alena Mičeková,...)

There aren’t many opportunities to work while studying in Liberec.
There are a few studios that could be found, but those torn students came to me for practice. Rather than imposing my opinions on the students at school, I waited for them to come to me when they wanted. In the end, there were quite a few of them.