Mgr. Jana Bukačová

2018-2022

Czech post-war architecture has in recent years been the subject of substantial attention from the professional community and the general public. Dozens of publications, exhibitions, and research projects have emerged that focus on the optimistic sixties and the echoes of that era in the seventies. However, the architecture of the very next decade has thus far been ignored. Despite the system of socio-political normalisation in effect at the time, the eighties are deserving of detailed research. It was a decade that produced many new ideas. Despite the political restrictions, contemporary theories made it into Czechoslovakia from abroad, and this included theories on the postmodern humanisation of modern and industrialised construction and the first signs of a more responsible approach in relation to the living environment. Many activities and discussions in the professional architectural community took on the character of a search for a parallel, humanised reality (e.g. Urbanity, Painted Architecture), and in the second half of the decade this social ferment also certainly mirrored the gradual thaw in the regime that was under way. Together with the after-effects of building projects from the sixties and seventies and alongside the highly centralised and politicised stream of standard production, the eighties saw the gradual rise of parallel alternative trends and high ambitions in architectural practice that reached well beyond the closed atmosphere of the era and the border of the socialist state. This NAKI project seeks to map the architecture of that period, its background in theory, and specific projects, buildings, interiors, and structures, and also aims to make a record of the current condition of the building stock from that period.

Detail

2018-2020

The aim of this project is mapping the realized and unrealized post-war objects which are in the borderland of architecture and design such as: tobacconists, telephone booths, bus and tram stops, notice boards, advertising surfaces, small houses for policemen etc. - objects with specific function in the public space. Who were the authors of these objects? This topic is important therefore the authors were the artists in many cases, not only architects and engineers. The task of the three-year project is to trace the social context, the relationship between small architecture and the surroundings or the neighboring buildings and to document the still-standing objects and their transformations over time. How many of them are still use and have their original purpose at present? Is possible to use some of them for another purpose? The project should document the historical development of individual objects and their types. The modularity and ergonomics were important topics of the post-war period, significantly supported by prefabrication of buildings. Another aim is to find out how much was the prefabrication and the industrial production important for the small architecture. Were the designs of the objects purely standardized, or were the products original designed, too?

Detail