Printed Architecture: Jan Trejbal

Vladimír's bookstore Serius and the PLAC association, with financial support from the Czech Architecture Foundation, cordially invite you to the 49th lecture in the printed architecture series. The evening, due to the current pandemic situation, will take place in virtual space, and you will have the opportunity to join from 6:30 PM via a link that will be sent before the broadcast. We look forward to seeing you!

About the publication: THE MOVEMENT OF THE CREATOR
This professional monograph addresses the topic of artistic explorations of areas created in collaboration with GHMP. It features both educators from UMPRUM (Jan Šépka, Miroslava Gulbisová) and students/graduates of the school (Conrad Armstrong, Ida Chuchlíková, Martin Zet, Vendulka Prchalová, and others...). The book contains 10+5 unique projects from the GHMP project and Jan Trejbal's own practice, 15 expert texts, an interview with Miloš Šejn, an introduction by Jiří Sádlo, 135 image attachments, 5 diagrams, and 106 entries in the author's terminological cloud.
The publication The Movement of the Creator focuses on area explorations from the perspective of a broad group of creators primarily because there is no stable expansion of the quality and spectrum of explorations in the preparatory phase in the domestic environment. Botanist Jiří Sádlo writes in a text titled How to Read Trejbal at the beginning of this publication: The role of "science" or "craft" is not necessarily more authoritative than "art," just as the role of the artist does not necessarily contain more feeling and imagination. The most promising in this regard is the breaking down of all such barriers and the emerging approaches that are multidisciplinary, interdisciplinary, and transdisciplinary.
The book does not provide direct answers. Nevertheless, or perhaps precisely for that reason, it should serve as a tool for a wider professional public and representatives from municipalities as inspiration for their further professional activities in the city and cultural landscape. It thus involves a wide range of creators from the field of art (visual artists, architects – urban planners, designers, historians, or potentially art theorists) to technically and non-artistically oriented professions (humanities and natural sciences), as well as employees of municipal offices and city districts, including construction and urban planning departments. The tool can then be defined as a simple standalone component of a larger system that expands the ability of this system to act on its surroundings.
The very title The Movement of the Creator refers to the creator-creator, who is synonymous with a builder, originator, or creator. All chapters, however, focus on analytical – preparatory activities preceding creative proposals. Here it is essential to consider whether one can admit the fact that actual explorations of areas in practice require the context-character-essence of the area/location. There must then exist a step-action before the actual design, for example, in the form of area exploration. This is very important even for every creator. This step – action is then the real strait that requires attention and this book as the aforementioned tool.
The publication relates, for example, to the circle of beneficiaries of GHMP from the program UM2020, specifically from the curatorial intention to increase and equalize the quality of life in the center and periphery of the city, as its theme is precisely the periphery. Indirectly, the publication may connect to the Manual for Creating Public Space in the City of Prague, which was addressed by the Institute for Development and Planning of Prague in collaboration with curators and theorists.

About the author: JAN TREJBAL
graduated in Glass and Free-form architecture from the Faculty of Architecture at CTU. He further continued at AVU in Prague, where he anchored his interest in transdisciplinary contexts between artistic and scientific views of the world. The result of this process was the establishment (2011) of the research platform Neolokator.cz, which, as the only one in the Czech Republic, focuses strictly on interdisciplinary creation of expert studies and the popularization of the development of collaboration among professions.
In 2011, he was awarded the main prize of the Young Architecture Award for the work Czech Countryside (together with Ida Chuchlíková), where he first presented his GPS sketching method for art and practice.
In the field of science and research, he completed his doctoral studies in 2021 on the topic "Transdisciplinary Explorations of Areas," where he developed the current system of area-analytical methods used in urbanism and the so-called Social Network Analysis method.
He has long been engaged in teaching activities, primarily at AVU Prague, FA CTU, and currently at UMPRUM Prague. Most of his courses are approached in an authorship way and focus on the development of skills that fit into the term "Knowledge broker," which is a common component of postgraduate study programs in art, design, and architecture in the Euro-Atlantic space.
The Neolokator platform also enables him to engage in publishing activities (e.g., Zlatý řez, ERA21, Czech Television, Czech Radio, Lidové noviny, Slow TV, Deník.cz).
He regularly exhibits his artistic works on the border of field research, conceptual art, and urbanism (more than 14 solo exhibitions since 2006 - e.g., Galerie Makráč, Off-format, Altán Klamovka, INI gallery, Stolen Gallery..). He is fascinated by live broadcasting, which he considers a certain form of teleportation.
In 2019, Jan published a book (with René Tydlitát) on the phenomenon of Weather Meteorological Columns. In 2021, Jan published the monograph The Movement of the Creator with UMPRUM Publishing, focusing on area explorations as a form of artistic research.
Currently, Jan collaborates with the studio Design for Landscape.