Miroslav Šik - And now the ensemble!!!

In mid-October, an exhibition and lecture by Professor Miroslav Šik from ETH Zurich will take place in České Budějovice.

Gallery of Contemporary Art and Architecture - House of Art Č. Budějovice
Opening of the exhibition on Thursday, October 17, 2013, at 18:00
The exhibition will last until November 17, 2013
Curator of DU: Michal Škoda

On Thursday, October 17, a /pre-opening/ lecture by the author will take place in the club Horká vana / Česká 7 / at 16:30.

The exhibition A now ANSAMBL!!! presents a challenge to architects, builders, and authorities to view urban design and architecture as a collective, evolving, and dialogue-based work of art, and to act accordingly. In the spaces of the House of Art gallery, a corresponding visual statement is exhibited in the form of large-format prints.

Three Swiss architectural studios, which have long promoted an approach to urban architecture based on an architectural ensemble / ansambl / and atmosphere, participate here through collaboration by combining images of their own buildings and projects to create an architectural ensemble in a collage style. The authors are architect and university professor Miroslav Šik and architect colleagues Knapkiewicz & Fickert from Zurich and Miller & Maranta from Basel. The installation of this project, through its function and the mood it evokes, enters into a certain dialogue with its immediate surroundings.

Understanding the characteristic features and identity of a given location, allowing them to penetrate any new construction, and mixing the old with the new to create a new vibrant ensemble: all this requires a considerable degree of empathy, high expertise in architecture, and a thorough knowledge of local historical and architectural traditions. Designing new units within the existing architectural ensemble / ansambl / does not demand imitation of the given urban pattern but instead requires an interpretation of the location against the background of past and proven solutions, moderate modernization, and the use of unusual elements that add flavor to the atmosphere of the whole. The goal is to create an architectural ensemble with a strong spatial effect and a distinct mood that transforms the mixture of individual buildings developed over history into an organized whole. Such an approach to design and architecture allows for contemporary yet continuous forms of urban construction beyond modernism and postmodernism. On the other hand, if the element of dialogue is neglected, and if the used approach becomes a fashionable element and star architecture, the result may appear beautiful and striking visually, but it will stand alone and without a relationship to its surroundings. Instead of an organized ensemble, the totality of these buildings becomes chaos and paradoxically another step towards global uniformity.

Miroslav Šik (*1953) is an architect of Czech origin, the son of a prominent Czech economist. In 1968, he emigrated with his parents to Switzerland, where he still lives and works today. He is a student of Aldo Rossi at ETH Zurich. He remained at this school, focusing on the study of Swiss architecture during World War II, and assisted Prof. F. Reinhardt. He formulated his own theory of so-called analog architecture, based on the local context and aiming to connect the old with the new. In the early 1980s, he established his own studio in Zurich and taught at the Faculty of Architecture CTU in Prague from 1990 to 1992, influencing a generation of young Czech architects. Some of them founded the group New Czech Work / M. Kuzemenský, M. Chalupa, D. Kraus, J. Šépka, J. Matula …/ After Prague, M. Šik worked at EPF Lausanne and in 1998 obtained a professorship at ETH Zurich.

Šik's theory of analog architecture has gradually gained great acclaim and respect. According to him, architecture should be in harmony with its environment, without external effects, from ordinary materials. The author is among the most respected figures on the contemporary international scene. Besides a number of realizations in Switzerland and his own house in the Czech Republic / Třeboň /, he has had several exhibitions across European metropolises and is presenting this project in the Czech Republic after a long time. He has published his theories and opinions in numerous international architectural journals and has released several books, such as Analoge Architektur / Czech 1990 /, Altneu, or last year on the occasion of the Venice Biennale, his own monograph.

The exhibition “A now Ansambl !!!“ successfully represented Switzerland at the 13th International Architecture Biennale in Venice 2012, where Miroslav Šik was appointed to take charge of this representation.

The project he created with his colleagues is now presented in a specially adapted form / specifically for the given spaces / at the Gallery of Contemporary Art and Architecture at the House of Art in České Budějovice.