The specific focus of our 2020 program will be based on two characteristic formats – a physical object (a book) and an event (a workshop and a lecture with discussion).

Workshop/Lecture/Discussions

The workshop entitled Speculative Scenarios of Affordable Housing on Rohan Island will include contributions by three selected creatives who will work with teams from Prague. The event will be held within the program of the exhibition Karlin ExChange. The exhibition compares the former industrial neighborhood of Prague before and after the devastating floods of 2002. It highlights the rapid urbanization by the private sector of this area as well as its gentrification.

The workshop will last several days and will focus on the area of Rohan Island, a rapidly devoloping part of Karlín district. In the first part of the workshop all three creatives will present their ideas and projects. At the beginning, we will focus on the topic of the post-1989 urban privatization. The main focus will be questioning housing strategies and policies in European cities in compare to Prague with Rohan Island as a case study. All selected projects deal critically with the issue of private/public, strategies of accessible housing in real-estate developer projects, and with the ideas of providing housing for a diverse range of its inhabitants.

As part of the event, we will publish a small book/zine with several texts and all projects developed at the workshop.

Selected participants:

Goda Verikaite (Rotterdam), Benedikt Hartl (Munich), and William Maddinson (Edinburgh).

Workshop: Speculative Scenarios of Affordable Housing on Rohan Island

1. 6. - 10. 6. 2020, Online / Kasárna Karlín, Prvního pluku 20, Praha 8

The other event will be a 30 minutes presentation by Ana Carreño Fernandez-Travanco (stream via Skype) with a follow-up panel discussion with Petr Gibas from the Institute of Sociology of the Czech Academy of Sciences. The topic of the event will deal with the transformation of postindustrial cities and the issue of "genius loci." 

Lecture: Genius loci: Use of Language in Architecture

By Ana Carreño Fernandez-Travanco (online stream) and Petr Gibas

18. 6. 2020,  19:00, VI PER Gallery

Book

As part of Future Architecture 2020 Call for Ideas, VI PER Gallery launched an open call for a publishing project. The book will be published by VI PER Gallery currently establishing new and diverse publishing activities. This started with our first book Steel Cities: The Architecture of Logistics in Central and Eastern Europe, an exploration into the landscapes of outsourcing that are growing around the Western Borders of Eastern Europe (published in 2019 in collaboration with Park Books).

We were looking for proposals addressing our 2020 program entitled All the Beauties of the City dealing with contemporary city and its connection to politics, social issues, economy, environment, public space, technology, etc., affecting the state, context and network of social and spatial relationships of the current and future cities and urban conditions across the globe. The welcomed projects with the strong conceptual and artistic approach. The open call was open to all professions and fields of interest: architects, artists, historians, curators, researchers, writers, etc.

The selected project is Private Views: A high-rise panorama of Manhattan by Andi Schmied, a Hungarian artist and architect. She will receive a supporting grant to finish her work and she is currently working closely with our team and graphic designer. The book will include several texts, interview, photographs of all documented buildings, etc. The book will be published in autumn 2020. The book will be introduced at VI PER together with the author in a talk/discussion as part of the official book launch.