Reflections on the Meeting about Cheap House versus Architect

On Thursday, January 4th, the third meeting of the series VERSUS ARCHITEKT took place at the Czech Center Prague, organized by the Czech Center, with media partner archiweb.cz, and curated and initiated by the studio A1Architects. The entire series is built around a series of short presentations by various personalities, focusing on eight abstract themes. Four of these meetings address the views of architect-creators, while the other four present insights from personalities who reflect on, interpret, or create conditions for the practice of architecture.

The third meeting increasingly embodied the significance of the word "versus," as it concluded with a dramatic exchange of opinions among the guests, ending only with the loud applause of the audience. The meeting on the theme Cheap House VERSUS ARCHITECT was again streamed live online, and a recording will also be published in the near future on the official website of the series www.versusarchitekt.cz. Compared to the previous evening on the topic of Media, the number of invited guests was halved, thus allowing them double the usual time for their presentations.

The first to share his experience with cheap houses was Patrik Zamazal. He discussed the issues of low-cost building in specific rural situations. He showcased several buildings that were partially or fully built by the homeowners themselves. He introduced clients, their initial ideas, and the entire construction process. Along with highlighting his own mistakes and providing documented budgets for each house, he convincingly illustrated how a cheap house can emerge within a supportive network of social relations, combined with the investor's decision to contribute to the construction with their own efforts. The condition always remained the saving achieved through a quality project.

With a lecture analyzing the situation and presenting the basic principles of low-energy and passive buildings, Aleš Brotánek took the stage. He began with a modest house that "was supposedly built for 80,000 crowns," drawing attention to the real - hidden costs of this seemingly cheap endeavor. He advocated for a responsible approach and freedom coupled with responsibility. Throughout the evening, he revealed pseudo-ecological houses supported by imbalanced subsidies and ultimately presented his and others' realizations of energy-efficient passive buildings, along with the basic principles for their creation.

The possibility of affordable housing was conditioned by the alignment of complex relationships in the landscape and city by Zdeněk Meisner. He linked the issue of cheap housing with the problem of a cheap life, questioning the purpose of a cheap house if affordable housing is not possible. Along with the energy and material debts pointed out by previous contributions, Zdeněk Meisner added social debt. Using the example of subsidized public transport in Prague and the demolition of a gardener's colony in Libeň, he reminded the audience of the crushing weight of the inefficiency of current urban planning.

Then followed a short break, before which Martin Rajniš promised that after the break he would offend and irritate everyone present. He spoke without a microphone, which somewhat unsettled the organizers as he risked not being heard in the online broadcast. Fortunately, he reportedly "shouted so much that it didn't matter." He discussed living without regulations, without budgets, about unbridled life, money, and freedom. He presented realizations of cheap houses based on his convictions. He made it clear to everyone how deeply he despises low-energy buildings, considering them wasteful. Given the initial clarification that if someone yawns or looks tired "Martin will kill them," the audience's attention remained sharp until the end, provoking several questions. Martin Rajniš's lecture will, by agreement with the organizers, be transcribed and provided to the author for him to use as he wishes, so it is expected that it will eventually be made available alongside the recording on the VERSUS ARCHITEKT website or in some publication or online.

After the event, people continued to chat and drink wine in the center for a while. Before midnight, most attendees infiltrated smaller groups into surrounding Old Town restaurants and tea houses, continuing their own programs…

The diverse and sometimes contradictory positions of the guests on the issue of the cheap house left some listeners confused, who approached the organizers afterward, asking why there was no clear conclusion emerging from the meeting. Why, then, was there no vote on a guaranteed recipe for building cheaply as part of the evening on the theme Cheap House versus Architect? It is necessary to reiterate that the series does not aim to issue press statements or guaranteed recipes, but rather to familiarize with a mosaic of approaches and provoke, based on shorter presentations by varied guests, questions that the audience must laboriously seek answers to itself. VERSUS ARCHITEKT is not a guaranteed guide to good architecture; it is a platform for friendly confrontation of many views without claiming the final word. The series offers guests who discuss their positions and work concerning a selected topic, and it is up to each listener to form their own opinion about their personalities and positions with full responsibility that follows. If someone attends all eight meetings of VERSUS ARCHITEKT, they will hear around fifty opinions on the most diverse questions. This can be considered a solid basis for a broader discussion on architectural topics, which in itself is the only concrete objective of the series.

Next, artists and visual artists will gather at the Czech Center. The theme for the meeting on February 1st is Art versus Architect. We will seek to answer the question of how architecture relates to art, and we will meet with the perspectives of artists on issues that architects claim a monopoly over.