First House VERSUS ARCHITECT

The opening meeting of the series took place at the Czech Centre Prague on Thursday, November 2ndVERSUS ARCHITEKT - the first of a total of eight. The Czech Centre took on the role of organizer and host, while the media partner of the series is archiweb.cz. The artistic director and initiator is the creative studio A1Architects, which based the entire series on a series of short presentations from various personalities with a common thread connecting to eight abstract themes. The subsequent short discussion continues with an invitation for a glass of wine and informal continuation of the evening in the intimate spaces of the Czech Centre gallery. The colorful mosaic of information and individual observations that this series should provide to the audience was initiated by those who are usually not invited to share their experiences, namely emerging architects who embarked on their own creative path right after school or during their studies.

The title was therefore aptly First House versus Architect. A total of seven guests came to share their experiences with their first independent realization and their observations on the difficult beginnings of an architect in general. The selection was not subject to any sophisticated criteria; the invited were simply young people who graduated and began their architectural work after 2001 - technically already in the 21st century. Although their work meets above-standard criteria, and some have received significant awards, the meeting's focus was not on the realizations themselves but on the entire story and individual conclusions that the authors draw from their experiences with the realization of their first house. Everything that one cannot deduce from documentation.
Honza Klempíř and Kryštof Štulc from the studio Atelier.. [read as: atelier two dots] presented a brand new realization of a house in a gap on the square in Nýřany, explaining how they convinced the investor to build an entire house on the neighboring plot instead of the planned attic reconstruction. They walked through the entire saga backward from the final building to the foundations and interior designs. They spoke about the surprise that arose from poor orientation and how their private model ultimately came in handy on the construction site, as well as the specific relationship that artisans gradually developed with construction details.
Kamila Amblerová introduced a family house in Květnice and several previous studies that inspired her to the final result. She described how she dealt with the inherited project, including the foundation slab, and showcased the house not only through professional photos by Andrea Lhotáková (a guest at the next versus architect meeting) but also through authentic snapshots from life on the construction site to illustrate the entire atmosphere of the realization process and highlight its importance for the outcome.
Martin Kožnar presented a reconstruction of an apartment in Horažďovice, describing the situation related to the lack of quality craftsmen in a small town and methods to cope with it. He talked about the ghost that the reconstruction chased away and how the children of the residents appropriated the shower as their exclusive play bunker.
Lucie Kavánová shared her experience gained from the reconstruction of a mill in the Vysočina region, more commonly known as Kotrčův mlýn. Besides the building itself, she spoke about its extensive media coverage and what it meant and means for her and the investor. She also mentioned an unpleasant experience with unexpectedly audacious questioning of her authorship and what her rich mix of these experiences implies for her approach to future projects.
Honza Srna and Tomáš Straka, collaborating in the group Srna & Straka, compactly presented from their first joint unrealized proposal for the renovation of a panel apartment through two completed realizations to the study and final design of their first house. They mentioned the loss of unhealthy illusions and how they learned to transition to different thought patterns while still retaining the rich experiences from each previous project and utilizing them effectively for the next one.
Marcela Steinbachová, who was originally supposed to attend the meeting, had to regret her participation at the last minute due to her absence from the country.

After the short debate and the invitation for wine, the Czech Centre remained available to the visitors until late at night. Contrary to the skepticism of some consultants with whom A1Architects discussed the dramaturgy of the series, who doubted that very young architects could say or show anything interesting, it turned out that the opposite was true. The Centre was filled to capacity despite minimal campaigning right until the end, and immediately after the conclusion, there were voices inquiring about its recording. Photographs from the event and an audio recording for download will be published shortly on the official website of the series www.versusarchitekt.cz.

The next meeting on Thursday, December 7th will have the theme Media versus Architect, among the guests will be photographers whose faces and opinions mostly remain "behind the image," despite being the ones who most frequently mediate architecture in the first instance today. Their chief editors will also present their concepts for several types of media, and there will not be a lack of insights from the world of public television or independent documentaries.