Archive

Industrial Architecture in the Second Half of the 20th Century: Extension, Transformation, and Identity.

The Research Centre for Industrial Heritage of the Faculty of Architecture of the Czech Technical University started on 1 March 2023 work on a five-year project supported under the National and Cultural Identity (NAKI II) research and development programme of the Ministry of Culture of the Czech Republic (DH23P03OVV016).

The general objective of this project is to enhance a specific national and cultural identity by understanding, interpreting, and highlighting the cultural significance and possibilities for the sustainable preservation of what is currently one of the most at risk categories of built heritage from the second half of the 20th century, a category of structures that are still overlooked and undervalued among the broad spectrum of topics in industrial heritage.

The concept of industrial heritage needs to be expanded beyond its (traditional) perception, understanding, and analysis. The specific aim of this project is therefore to shift knowledge in two thematic and methodological lines. First, it expands the temporal understanding by focusing on the cultural segment of industrial architecture that dates from the second half of the 20th century, a heritage that is at risk but unmapped and has to now been overlooked, and that has necessary contextual overlaps in both chronological directions – into the interwar period and into the transformational 1990s. A parallel line of inquiry will observe the accompanying social phenomena that in the observed period ushered in a need and a search for new interpretative approaches to industrial heritage and the emergence of systematic efforts to protect it.

The selected topic, its focus, and its planned practical applications and publication outcomes have been chosen in a way that will ensure that the results can be directly applied in the areas of work of professional and educational organisations, bodies of state administration and local government, private subjects, and research institutions and by the professional community and general public.

Investigators: Mgr. Jan Zikmund, Ph.D. (guarantor); PhDr. Benjamin Fragner; Mgr. Lukáš Beran, Ph.D.; Mgr. Jan Červinka; Mgr. Irena Lehkoživová, Ph.D.; Mgr. Jakub Potůček.

The project has a separate website at zavodyprumyslu.cz.

Séquin & Knobel: A Map of Industrial Architecture

In recent years the Research Centre for Industrial Heritage at the Faculty of Architecture of the Czech Technical University in Prague has been surveying the general principles behind the emergence of industrial buildings and sites, which are at the same time the basic principles of industrial civilisation—the rationalisation, specialisation, standardisation, and the global transfer of experiences. The aim is to understand the general cultural values of such heritage. The research has therefore sought to grasp industrial structures as complex, individual works and studied their origin and authorship. One of the case studies created as part of work on the Industrial Architecture research project focuses on the work of ‘the doyen of industrial construction’ in Central Europe: the office of Carl Arnold Séquin-Bronner (1845–1899) and his associate – and future successor – Hilarius Knobel (1854–1921) established in Rüti near the city of Zürich, Switzerland. This office introduced advanced British methods of textile factory design and a number of their own construction innovations to continental Europe, and reportedly designed more than two hundred industrial buildings. The results of research conducted by Michael Hanak in the archives of this architectural office, a collection that is now part of the archives of the Institute for the History and Theory of Architecture at ETH in Zurich, were updatet and combined with findings from other sources to produce one-line map that can be used to share and build on current knowledge. The map makes it possible to draw connections between individual buildings themselves and between and their current owners, users, and admirers, who have repurposed and redefined many of them in the course of time.

 

sequin-et-knobel-map

 

Research Centre for Industrial Heritage FA CTU Prague, Vestiges of Industry Platform and Jaroslav Fragner Gallery

invite you to the exhibition

 

place form programme

/ CONVERSIONS

industrial contexts

 

In a situation impacted by demolitions and the physical deterioration of industrial objects and by the pressure to demolish and to free up land for new construction but one in which also there has been increasing recognition over the years of other values –

the meaning of a place,
the remarkable qualities of form,
the aim of the new programme,

the architecture of conversions represents the consequence and outcome of a search for the right starting points, finding a balance between heritage protection, new creative interventions, and pragmatic recycling, an opportunity for bringing new ambitions to life, applying an artistic intention, and fulfilling business objectives, and a spontaneous effort to preserve what can still be preserved. It is a response to the changing atmosphere in society, a way of relating to the immediate environment, a more general tendency to create architectural work within a specific and often contentious context.

The exhibition presents the results of projects conducted over the course of five years (2015–2020) and ties in with previous events organised over the past thirty years, from the first Industrial Architecture / Unused Heritage exhibition to 12 Years Later, Vestiges of Industry, and What We Ourselves Demolished, to the exhibitions of the architecture of conversion organised in 2005 and 2014.

The exhibition will be open in the Jaroslav Fragner Gallery according to the current epidemiological situation from 22 December 2020 to 14 February 2021.

Outcome of the project Industrial Architecture: Understanding Monuments of Industrial Heritage as Technical-Architectural Works and as a Source of Identity of a Place supported by the Ministry of Culture of the Czech Republic under its NAKI II (National and Cultural Identity) Applied Research Programme (DG16P02H001).

 

organisers /
Research Centre for Industrial Heritage FA CTU Prague
Jaroslav Fragner Gallery

in cooperation with /
The Technical Monuments Committee
Vestiges of Industry

curator /
Benjamin Fragner

collaboration /
Dan Merta, Jan Červinka, Jan Zikmund

production /
Klára Pučerová, Gabriel Fragner, Klára Bártová

graphic design /
Jan Forejt (Formall)

installation /
Tomáš Valušek, Marek Majnuš

screening /
Jan Zikmund

editing of drawing documentation /
Jan Kuták

 

konverze_2020-foto_gabriel_fragner-01 konverze_2020-foto_gabriel_fragner-02 konverze_2020-foto_gabriel_fragner-03 konverze_2020-foto_gabriel_fragner-04 konverze_2020-foto_gabriel_fragner-05 konverze_2020-foto_gabriel_fragner-06 konverze_2020-foto_gabriel_fragner-07 konverze_2020-foto_gabriel_fragner-08

(photo Gabriel Fragner)

Creators of Industrial Buildings (movie)

On 26 and 27 September 2018, the Research Centre for Industrial Heritage, FA CTU Prague, organized a multidisciplinary off‑site symposium titled the “Creators of Industrial Buildings”. To accompany the event, the VCPD published a compilation of abstracts and created a short film to capture the atmosphere of the event (see bellow).

 

TICCIH National Reports 2016–2018

TICCIH National Reports provide descriptions of industrial heritage activities that have occurred over the three years since our last Congress. This material was presented during our 17th Congress, held in Santiago, Chile, and continues our practice of reporting global actions and events related to the industrial heritage, collected and reported on a national basis by our members. Please use this link below to download your PDF copy or follow this link to read the national reports on the web site ISSUU.