<div>Circle Spring 2013: Gilles Perraudin - Folk Inspiration</div>

Kruh and the French Institute in Prague invite you to the lecture series "Metamorphoses of Cities"

Thu 06/06/13, 19:30

Fri 07/06/13, 19:00

Gilles Perraudin, Folk Inspiration

Innovative building methods and sustainable construction have engaged leading architects from around the world for several decades. However, few creators radically return to original architecture and folk methods as strongly as the prominent French architect Gilles Perraudin, who will speak on June 6 in Prague and the next day in Brno as part of the lecture series Metamorphoses of Cities.

Gilles Perraudin and his studio Perraudin Architectes have been dealing with environmental issues, sustainable construction, and research into new and innovative building methods using natural materials from local sources for over thirty years. Paradoxically, he arrived at these methods after an initial fascination with high-tech technologies, which he utilized in his projects. This includes the project Mont-Cenis Academy in Herne, Germany (1999), a sophisticated ultra-ecological building – a massive greenhouse with a wooden supporting structure, topped with 10,000 m² of photovoltaic panels that produce 1 MW of clean electric energy.

Due to the problematic recycling of used materials and demanding details, Perraudin ultimately favored original materials such as wood, clay, and stone in their raw form, without combining them with modern materials and technologies. The use of these eco-friendly materials refers to original buildings, archetypal architecture that gains a very contemporary form in Perraudin's projects. Perraudin is known for his realizations made of massive stone blocks – for example, the wine cellar Chai Viticole Vauvert, as well as other projects for schools, museums, and residential buildings that are sensitively integrated into their landscape context and fulfill highly relevant functionality despite their rustic appearance.

Gilles Perraudin (*1949) is a French architect based in Lyon. His works include buildings for wineries in Vauvert (1998), Nizas (2001), and Solan (2008), as well as the complex of the Wine Museum in Patrimonio, Corsica (2011), which are made of massive stone blocks, sensitively integrated into the Mediterranean environment. www.perraudinarchitectes.com

Thu 06/06/13, 19:30
French Institute in Prague, Štěpánská 35, Prague 1
free
the lecture will be in French and translated into Czech

Fri 07/06/13, 19:00
4AM/Forum for Architecture and Media, Rosická 1, Brno
free
the lecture will be in French and translated into Czech

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Organizers: Kruh, French Institute in Prague,
partners: Ministry of Culture of the Czech Republic, AVU School of Architecture Prague,
project supported by: Konsepti, City Hall of Prague, MDA Prague s.r.o., Metrostav a. s., Sipral a. s., Czech Architecture Foundation,
media partners: Era 21, Radio 1, archiweb.cz

The Civic Association Kruh has been organizing public events and lectures focused on current developments in architecture since 2001. The goal of the lectures and discussions is to facilitate a dialogue about quality Czech and world architecture and architectural creation with broader layers of the public - i.e., beyond the narrow circle of experts and architecture students. Kruh has organized more than one hundred lectures by prominent and emerging Czech and foreign architects and theorists of architecture, two film festivals on architecture, and an exhibition titled Profession: Architect. They regularly publish collections of Texts on Architecture. The Civic Association Kruh is also the initiator of the nationwide festival Architecture Day.