What emerged from the beautiful housing estate?

On May 14, 2009, a discussion titled Beautiful Housing Estates? took place at the Kotěra Center – Trmal Villa, aiming to address pressing questions regarding the aesthetics, evolution, and future of normalization housing estates. The discussion featured young theorists and implementers of remarkable projects engaged with this topic: Pavel Dvořák (prazskekasny.net), Markéta Žáčková (CCEA and Sculpture Park Kraví hora), Pavel Karous (Vetrelcivolavky.cz), and Ladislav Zikmund-Lender (Kotěra Center, Obrazar.com).

What is life like twenty years after the Velvet Revolution in Czech housing estates? Do the gray but functional housing complexes signify merely the grim era of normalization in the 1970s and 1980s, or have they transformed into beloved and practical homes for their residents? Do we perceive qualitative differences in architecture and urban planning among various housing estates and panel buildings? And do we view normalization artistic elements as art, or merely as bitter additions to the tastelessness of that period? These are questions that four young art historians sought to answer during the panel discussion at Prague's Trmal Villa.
The beginning of the debate focused on the personal attitudes of participants towards housing estates and the aspects of life within them. All participants generally regard their experiences of living in housing estates positively. They often emphasized the need to evaluate the qualitative differences among individual estates; among the quality ones, they listed Prague's housing estates Novodvorská, Ládví, and also Jihozápadní město. “It was created in several stages and it is interesting to see how it gradually improved as the communist regime relaxed,” said Pavel Dvořák, author of the Prague Fountains project. “Personally, I perceive the aesthetics of the housing estate more in the elements that beautify the estate rather than in the actual concept of mass housing on the outskirts of the city,” Dvořák added.
“The negative perception of housing estates is associated not only with often defective architecture but primarily with a nostalgic pessimism towards that era and the entire regime,” said architectural historian Ladislav Zikmund-Lender. Markéta Žáčková added another perspective on assessing the quality of life in housing estates: “For instance, the socialization of children often occurs in housing estates; you are certainly more likely to let your child out among the panel buildings than somewhere on Legerova street.”
Pavel Karous, who focuses mainly on normalization sculptures, also recalled the specific issue of the inconceivable removal of normalization decorative elements, citing the sculpture Dálky in the Novodvorská estate as an example. “This is the first kinetic sculpture in our country. Its author had political problems when it was created, and now officials from the Prague 4 municipal office want to dismantle it,” says Pavel Karous. “It should be the other way around; there should be some information board about the significance of this object.”
The most extensive part of the panel discussion was dedicated to the issue of heritage protection for housing estates. Ladislav Zikmund-Lender believes that the original form of housing estates is rapidly disappearing. “There are various extensions, gable roofs, and turrets; I call them popsicle cakes around Prague, which destroy the fundamental idea of that architecture.” He also emphasized the various perceptions of experts and the general public regarding heritage protection. “Housing estates simply do not have the same historical value as Karlštejn.”
Pavel Dvořák expressed the opinion that it makes no sense to protect extensive housing complexes as heritage. “Rather, we should be interested in individual interesting elements of the estates.” Ladislav Zikmund also agrees with this. “We should select one housing estate, perhaps Novodvorská, and apply some broader form of heritage protection there.” He also recalled the exhibition Husákovo 3+1, which depicted an average panel apartment in a gallery space.
In the discussion segment, an audience member – architect Vlado Milunić – also spoke. “I am surprised by the opinions of the four discussants: the entire project of housing estates was malign from the start; people started to move en masse from the centers, which fell into decay.” However, Milunić sees the fundamental problem in totalitarian notions of creating architecture and urbanism: “It is malign that these vast housing complexes were designed by a single author. It’s like masturbation: all done by one hand. A city must be created by many people.” Vlado Milunić is also dissatisfied with the quality of housing in the estates and points to the problem of the rapid transition between private and public space. “I walk out of my private apartment and immediately enter the public sphere. It is normal to walk from the apartment to a small street through a small square and to a larger street towards a main square.”
The purpose of Thursday evening at Trmal Villa in Prague's Strašnice was to discuss the future potential of dialogue concerning heritage protection of housing estates and possible variants of this historical architectural care. The discussion and the discussants hope to contribute to launching a broad public and professional debate on the legacy of panel construction of housing estates and the possibilities for improving life in these estates for their residents.

-dk-