Live together?

The concept of collective houses emerged as early as the end of the 19th century. It was about housing for the wealthy who did not want to keep servants. In the 1920s, the idea arose among avant-garde architects that rationally designed houses for hundreds of residents could solve the housing shortage of the time. In collective houses, individuals or families had a designated small private space complemented by shared facilities, such as dining rooms, laundries, nursery and kindergartens, club rooms, and sports facilities. In our country, two experimental houses were built after World War II, in Zlín and Litvínov.

The discussion will present an update on the idea of collective housing and its advantages, which include not only economic savings but also self-sufficiency in close non-family living, mutual support among community members, reduced ecological footprint, and social emancipation. The event is in connection with the publication of the book Living Together: Collective Houses in the Czech Lands and Europe in the 20th Century (ed. Hubert Guzik, Prague: Arbor Vitae 2017), which presents the phenomenon of collective houses in a historical perspective.

Guests:
Jan Blažek is an economist and social geographer working at the Department of Environmental Studies at Masaryk University in Brno. In his doctoral research, he focuses on residential socio-ecological community projects. He primarily examines models of economic organization of collective housing and also addresses alternative financing of construction and the connection between environmental, economic, and social sustainability of these structures. He has personally visited and included more than forty projects in his research across six European countries. During his research, he has collaborated with, for example, UAB Barcelona or the University of Sheffield. In addition to community economics, he also deals with the concept of commons, alternative currencies, and sustainable entrepreneurship.

Karolína Vránková is a journalist. Since 2007, she has been an editor at the weekly Respekt. She also writes for other printed media and hosts a show called Degustace designu on Radio 1 together with Adam Štěch. She focuses on architecture, design, and lifestyle. Her research work deals with the topic of shared housing, especially from a sociological perspective. She studied media studies at Charles University and completed work and study stays in Amsterdam, Newcastle, and Berlin.

Lenka Kužvartová is an architectural historian and a PhD student at the Institute of Art History at Charles University in Prague. She has long been engaged in collective housing and the socially engaged role of architects. She co-authored the exhibition project Living Together: Czech Collective Houses, which included exhibitions in 2017-2018 at the Museum of Art in Olomouc, the Regional Gallery in Liberec, and the Alšova South Bohemian Gallery – Gallery Mariánská in České Budějovice. For this project and the follow-up publication Living Together: Collective Houses in the Czech Lands and Europe in the 20th Century, she conducted research on so-called hotel-type houses. As part of her dissertation work, she examines the activities of Brazilian and Portuguese radical architects.

Barbora Vacková is a sociologist and educator working at the Department of Media Studies and Journalism at the Faculty of Social Studies and at the Department of Civic Education at the Faculty of Education, Masaryk University. She primarily focuses on urban sociology and the sociology of housing. She is the author or co-author of numerous scholarly articles and several books, including The Baťa House: Disappearing Elements of Zlín Architecture (2017), Home Alone: Living, Working, and Relationships of People Living in Single-Person Households (2014), The Third City (2011), and Space, Power, and Utopia: The Ideal City and Its Society (2010).

The discussion is co-organized by the Faculty of Architecture at CTU in Prague.