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—— The year 1969 was a year of a kind of strange transition, where almost anything was possible and at the same time nothing at all. This “nothing at all” came only very slowly and unobtrusively with the onset of “normalization,” whose “grave silence” manifested itself only several years later, while that “almost everything” was expressed through a kind of defiant creativity amidst a relative political vacuum. In my case, it was primarily about the last year of my studies. I was still not aware of the early post-invasion lethargy, even though my parents' regular visits in Mladá Boleslav, where one of the strongest Russian garrisons was temporarily stationed, were always a reminder of the stifling reality. In contrast, there was my youthful optimism and the establishment of a beautiful friendship with John Eisler, with whom I shared a strong ideological affinity. Logically, we both succumbed to the magnetism of the Liberec tower and sought contact with Karel Hubáček, where we became, after Stanislav Švec and Helena Jiskrová, some sort of seed for what later became the School Group.
The diploma topic was actually assigned to me by Hubáček. It was about the expansion of the Ypsilon Theater in Liberec, on which he was working at that time. I don’t know how it went for Hubáček. For me, it was like a dog grazing and ended up quite disgracefully, although the grade – I don’t know how it is today, but back then it was done this way at ČVUT – was beautiful. I am still ashamed of it. All the more, I fondly remember the girl I met on the spiral staircase of the Ypsilon Theater on the way to Mr. Director August, with whom I was consulting my diploma topic. Unlike Mr. August, she ignored me. Nevertheless, or perhaps precisely because of that, I thought about nothing else for a long time, which was correspondingly reflected in the result of my work.
It is evident that there was neither time nor mood for asking questions regarding the normalization society and, in my case, probably not even intellect. The year 1969 was also the year of my “basic military service,” where, in complete spirit of normalization, I was forced to swear to put my life on the line not only in the fight against the “external” enemy but for the first time also against the “internal” enemy. Of course, latent and omnipresent, although mostly drowned out by the beautiful racket of starting Mig-21s at the Bechyně airport, was the sadness over the evidently definitive loss of “socialism with a human face” – a sadness that, by the way, has not left me to this day.
Do you remember which architectural question you considered important at that time, or what question your diploma thesis posed?
—— Puberty is, as is known, a strange period of mental groping – a period when a normally sensible homo sapiens begins to dress irrationally, listen to intolerable music, and have unbearable parents. It passes after about five to ten years. How long it lasts for young architects, I do not know; in my case, it lasted a long time. The “architectural questions” I asked myself then were very simple: Why don’t I have such good ideas and can’t draw as well as Přikryl or Rajniš, why can’t I speak English like Eisler, why doesn’t it “burn” for me like it does for Vaďura, and why don’t I have such beautiful girls as Králíček? The SIAL School was not only a social utopia but also a competitive terrain, where each of us, whether alone or in coalitions, sought our own path. On my flag, it was written that “almost every ship or almost every airplane is beautiful, while almost every building is ugly.” Of course, it was primarily about military technology, because as is known, “the devil is the best designer.” In this terrain, where neither Přikryl nor Rajniš were very well acquainted, I felt confident. I was just as confident in the alliance with Eisler and sometimes with Králíček.
Puberty passed, but the question remained, albeit in a more mature form. It mutated from “visual rhetoric” of infantile “machinism” into a concrete interest in the rational use of available technologies – into a question of production at the level of the maximally achievable technological means. I still envy Emil, Martin, and their talents to this day.
Did any of the teachers significantly influence your perspective on the field?
—— Our professors, at least those I fondly remember, were a unique collection of whimsical originals. There was my then-employer and bon vivant Professor Šnajdr, who was usually naked under his gray work coat during hot summer months; there was Professor Krise in shapeless shoes he made himself; there was Professor Štursa, who had a minor speech defect and two women with whom he lived in peaceful coexistence, and whom he often mixed up over the phone – “Is it Vlasta or Marta?” I admired them; they were sympathetic to me, but I cannot say that I learned anything practical from them. They embodied for me a kind of very colorful past, where there must have been a lot of fun and through which a great river of red wine must have flowed. Although this impression contradicts reality, I think it wasn’t entirely wrong. It contributed to the birth of a certain class affiliation, of which I was proud. “Colleague, have you ever gotten drunk while working on this?” was the question asked by Docent Syrový when he felt that the students’ “work” was lacking in strength. To this day, I remember these gentlemen fondly and wish them that the great river of red "as in heaven so on earth" never runs dry.
Even if it sounds like a cliché, I must admit that my true university was life. In early childhood, it was my daily expeditions to the Mladá Boleslav airport, where both the German army and the Allied forces left behind a huge amount of aircraft wreckage that I was allowed to freely dispose of – the Mladá Boleslav buildings of Jiří Kroha, which appeared to me as remnants of some extinct advanced civilization – my father, an engineer at the Mladá Boleslav Škodovka, who taught me to love technology and technical drawings – Karel Hubáček, who knew how to “carry out the unfeasible” without getting into trouble – and finally Josef Paul Kleihues, who introduced me to the ethical mission of architecture – a mission that is connected not only with respect for those who came before us but also with responsibility towards those who will come after us. It’s like in that tramp song “the purpose is great, life is small,” which, although it smells a bit like kitsch, is still a great truth.
Considering the architecture school of the "future," what characteristic should it (re)incorporate from the school you attended?
—— The future of architecture schools cannot be separated from a critical analysis of the current state. The so-called “modern” architecture, i.e., at least in the form that mass media peddle to consumers, no longer defines itself in tectonic categories of measurable space serving one function or another. Instead, it wants to be a function in itself, wants to be a media event, wants to be what is called an “event” in Anglo-Saxon terminology. Thus, architecture, which as a cultural act defined its meaning partly through its permanence, becomes a semi-permanent transitional event. The success of any event lies in the fact that as much as possible happens within it. Therefore, in this architecture, as much as possible must happen. It must be loud, it must be in constant motion, it must gesticulate wildly, it must ignore its surroundings in every case, and above all, it must grab attention at all costs, because its essence lies primarily in attracting attention.
Architecture schools today have two options. They can either come to terms with this development or oppose it and thus contribute to the return of architecture to a position in which it found itself until historically relatively recent times and where it thrived for many centuries, namely, to a position of service – of service at a high technical, aesthetic, and social level, but above all of service.
