Second lecture in the series "Wednesdays at AVU"
April 14, 2010, 18:00, Digilab AVU (auditorium) – 3rd floor
Academy of Fine Arts, U Akademie 4, Prague 7
Zdeněk HÖLZEL, SEARCHING FOR A GUIDE IN THE AIRSHIP.
Distant echoes from the world: Archigram, McLuhan, Jencks, Venturi, and Czech architecture
THE COMPLEXITY OF THE AIRSHIP
Manhattan covered by a dome! Walking cities! Mobility! Detachment from the Earth! Factory-made houses! Capsules! Towers! Rockets! Everything new! Diagonal construction! Is the strength of architecture in industry, aviation, automobiles, ships, submarines, hovercrafts? Non-functional functionalist houses demolished! How to escape being dragged into the Maelström? The world is no longer modern; are we post? Predictions of the future – where will we live tomorrow? What is the language and meaning of architecture? Where is the guide through the confusion? Architects themselves? Are –isms really –wasms? Is complexity better than simplicity? And opposites?
Such images and words reached us in the 70s. All the more urgently, as they came from afar and into a theoretical desert. How did new architects cope with this at the time: by searching for guides, reading, translating, interpreting, seeking meaning. Is Venturi's Complexity and Contradiction (1966) after Le Corbusier's Towards a New Architecture (1923) the most important reflection on architecture of the 20th century? Will we see another after these 43 years?
Zdeněk Hölzel is a practicing architect, most of his constructions were realized with Jan Kerele (Family House in Turnov, Wreath Workshop in Žižkov, urbanism + ground floor + square + schools + residential buildings Panorama, Högerova and Kaskády in Barrandov, Cibulka Housing, Hybšmanka, Nová Harfa, Palace Myslbek and Palace Křižík, Smíchov-Gate and Teta Jungmannova, schools in Mikulandská, his own office building in Košíře, family houses Turnov, Slivenec, urbanism and square of the Western City, etc.). In the 70s, he was interested in theory – besides various unpublished translations (Alexander, Smithson, Rowe, Cook, McLuhan..), he translated and published with friends in samizdat the Language of Post-Modern Architecture by Ch. Jencks and his own translation of Complexity and Contradiction by R. Venturi. He founded the Chamber of Architects and in 1990 established the studio AHK architects.
Dates of the next lectures:
April 28, 2010 Rostislav Švácha / May 12, 2010 Osamu Okamura
Academy of Fine Arts, U Akademie 4, Prague 7
Zdeněk HÖLZEL, SEARCHING FOR A GUIDE IN THE AIRSHIP.
Distant echoes from the world: Archigram, McLuhan, Jencks, Venturi, and Czech architecture
THE COMPLEXITY OF THE AIRSHIP
Manhattan covered by a dome! Walking cities! Mobility! Detachment from the Earth! Factory-made houses! Capsules! Towers! Rockets! Everything new! Diagonal construction! Is the strength of architecture in industry, aviation, automobiles, ships, submarines, hovercrafts? Non-functional functionalist houses demolished! How to escape being dragged into the Maelström? The world is no longer modern; are we post? Predictions of the future – where will we live tomorrow? What is the language and meaning of architecture? Where is the guide through the confusion? Architects themselves? Are –isms really –wasms? Is complexity better than simplicity? And opposites?
Such images and words reached us in the 70s. All the more urgently, as they came from afar and into a theoretical desert. How did new architects cope with this at the time: by searching for guides, reading, translating, interpreting, seeking meaning. Is Venturi's Complexity and Contradiction (1966) after Le Corbusier's Towards a New Architecture (1923) the most important reflection on architecture of the 20th century? Will we see another after these 43 years?
Zdeněk Hölzel is a practicing architect, most of his constructions were realized with Jan Kerele (Family House in Turnov, Wreath Workshop in Žižkov, urbanism + ground floor + square + schools + residential buildings Panorama, Högerova and Kaskády in Barrandov, Cibulka Housing, Hybšmanka, Nová Harfa, Palace Myslbek and Palace Křižík, Smíchov-Gate and Teta Jungmannova, schools in Mikulandská, his own office building in Košíře, family houses Turnov, Slivenec, urbanism and square of the Western City, etc.). In the 70s, he was interested in theory – besides various unpublished translations (Alexander, Smithson, Rowe, Cook, McLuhan..), he translated and published with friends in samizdat the Language of Post-Modern Architecture by Ch. Jencks and his own translation of Complexity and Contradiction by R. Venturi. He founded the Chamber of Architects and in 1990 established the studio AHK architects.
Dates of the next lectures:
April 28, 2010 Rostislav Švácha / May 12, 2010 Osamu Okamura
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