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.

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

(photo Gabriel Fragner)

The project directly ties in with the previous NAKI project An Industrial Topography (2011–2014), and makes use and expands on this database in a synthesising and evaluative study that provides a structured selection of exemplary monuments of industrial heritage and their characteristic situations—doing so in the form of a specialised map, exhibitions and published monographs. The research is founded on understanding industrial buildings and complexes and on identifying the general cultural values of such heritage. The main approach is to survey the general principles behind the emergence of this heritage, which are at the same time the basic principles of industrial civilisation—the rationalisation, specialisation, standardisation, and the global transfer of experiences. The research grasps industrial structures as complex, individual works and studies their origin and authorship. The research will therefore focus on the work of specialised European design offices that are determing the direction development will take in the Czech Republic and on how their methods are being applied by other such offices in the country. It will examine the design work of construction companies that, particularly in the field of reinforced concrete construction, have reached a cutting-edge level in the country. It will highlight scientific methods applied in the design and architectural work of cooperative and state organisations for the construction of technical and transport infrastructure in the country and in the post-war period for building the foundations of industry. The findings will be presented and contrasted with other work at an international conference that will be held in 2018 and then summarised in a publication. The most important structures and sites in the CR will be captured in a specialised map reflecting all the perspectives outlined above and in 2020 an exhibition will be organised to conclude the project and a prestigious multi-lingual publication will be produced to accompany the event.

A complementary direction of the research is to survey the unique structural history of industrial works and to examine them as part of heterogeneous complexes whose functions change at critical points in time and have been lost in the post-industrial era, and to define the potential they have for helping to preserve the identity of a particular place in an effort to make use of that potential in future local development. Therefore the research will also seek to capture and reflect on the historical position of such structures today and to select the most inspiring examples of the forms they have come to assume today. These examples will be presented at an exhibition and in a publication in the third year of the project.

Both directions of research intersect in their basic understanding of the values that industrial heritage sites represent in modern-day circumstances, which is essential for identifying the most appropriate conservationist and creative urbanist and architectural approaches to apply to the adapted re-use of individual sites.

Investigators: Mgr. Lukáš Beran, Ph.D. (guarantor); Mgr. Jan Zikmund; PhDr. Benjamin Fragner; Mgr. Irena Lehkoživová; Mgr. Jakub Potůček; doc. Ing. arch. Petr Vorlík, Ph.D.; Mgr. Magdalena Tayerlová

Even though black coal was mined there for more than 400 years, Pilsen coal-field has always been in the background of Kladno and Ostrava region. After a long period of being closely linked to coal mining activities and subsequently after damping dawn and finally after  closing dawn coal mining completely, this region at present is going through a process of looking for a new identity. Gradually disappearing traces of strongly industrial landscape are in contrast with absence of further vision.

The objective of this interdisciplinary workshop is creating a wide spectrum of students and projects of various universities which will contribute to the future development of this area. Let’s introduce to each other various approaches when looking for an identity of the place on local as well as regional level, from landscape through municipality urbanism, constructions, interior up to design, land-art and site-specific activities.

Join us in our way to rediscover the miner’s culture area and industrial monuments of Pilsen region, let us revive its history and long time forgotten stories.

registration zbuch2015@gmail.com

time schedule here