doc. MgA. Ondřej Císler, Ph.D.

2021-2022

Glass making industry in Northern Bohemia is a phenomenon. Factory buildings producing and refining glass were places for the intangible dissemination of ideas, the exchange of experiences and the emergence of new social relations. Such enterprises in the past employed a large number of local inhabitants and the city grew spontaneously around them. The ruins of these buildings resemble their well-known past only very remotely. The chance for their saving is very low. The memory of the rich history and importance of those houses and products produced there is transferred only in people and their stories by now. SGS research aims to capture this memory on audiovisual media and preserve it tangibly for future generations.

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2017-2019

The house of culture appears after 1945 as a new building type. It is, unlike the already existing cultural buildings, characterized by its multifunctionality and versatility. At its beginning, the ideology plays crucial role as it became the cultural and political centre of socialistic society. In addition to the effort to raise the level of cultural education, it is used for promoting the communistic party and government, spreading their resolutions, popularization of the science and technology, youth education and it is intended to serve as the centre of culture and entertainment of socialistic working class. At the same time it acted as the mean of propaganda and control over the art and cultural events. On the other hand it allowed to raise several alternative music and theatre scenes as well as it brought the alternative to the architecture. Thanks to its location it also plays important role in the urbanism of the city - it is usualy located very close to the city centre with the great connection to public infrastructure and it begins the important cultural and community meeting point for its area. Today, the houses of culture are accepted mainly negatively, especially by the general public and they are seen as the relic of the past times, which are hard to adapt to the today society. It is given by the often controversal urbanism, oversized spaces, economically difficult operation and mainly by the label of socialistic architecture. How we should handle these buildings today? Do they still play an important role in the community, or has this way of spending the free time been already overcome? Is it economically convenient to continue to use and converse them? Is it possible to transform them in a way they reflect the current lifestyle and keep their architectual quality in a same time? The aim of the project is to find the answers to this questions, trying to create a methodology on how to approach the conversion of the houses of culture, how to improve the

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