Techo Journal II

Tech2 Techo journal Environment &Education

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1 This issue is dedicated to the future – the future of our environment and that of our children. We as a company, and as a group of individuals, have a role to play in these areas, and it is a role we are happy to fulfil. We can help the environment through strict adherence to the principles of sustainable development, and in the education sector we have become a specia- list in furnishing the seats of learning. The TECHO concept of sustainable manufacturing extends from the design phase, the sourcing of materials to the delivery of the furniture and eventual disposal at the end of its useful life. If we are really to make a mark and set an example for others to follow it is essential not just to play lip service to meeting the applicable standards and regulations, but actually to push beyond the current limits and pave the way for future stricter controls. We also recognise that as well as being functional and ergonomic, furniture has the ability to bring a bit of nature into the interior environment, making a work- place more “human”. Today users want to know that the workstations they work at were produced in a factory that places maximum emphasis on ensuring minimum environmental impact. In achieving this we look beyond the limits of our factory boundary. We consider ourselves responsible for the entire supply chain - from the cutting of trees to product delivery everyone applies the principles of sustainability and corporate responsibility. We are committed to ensuring that we only use suppliers that share our high standards for sustainability – a compa- ny cannot claim to be environmentally friendly if they use suppliers that are not environmentally responsible. We therefore audit our suppliers and will not use a supplier that fails to meet the required environmental criteria, even if their prices are the lowest. We thus accept respon- sibility not just for our own actions with respect to the environment, but also the actions of our suppliers. There are many debates regarding the best ways to protect the environment – is nuclear power a good or bad thing, and what about biofuels? These debates can make people sceptical about the environment. However, things are much more clear cut in our industry and we are 100% certain that the steps we take to protect the environment are beneficial – when we improve the efficiency of the factory, or design our products to be recycled, these are clearly positive things – no debate required. The extent of our commitment to the environ- ment and sustainable practices starting with sustainable forestry can be seen in TECHO’s C-o-C certification (chain of custody of wood) and tree planting initiative. This along with ISO 14001 and FISP certification makes TECHO a sector leader in the area of environmental certification. Education of the young generation is closely linked to sustainable development. The upco- ming generation will be aware of the environ- ment right from a young age in a way that we never were. They will be much more willing to take commercial decisions based on environ- mental criteria than previous generations. The best way to ensure we leave a sustainable environment for our children is to ensure our children are well educated. TECHO is always enthusiastic about being involved in education projects – not just from a commercial perspe- ctive. We understand the financial limitations of educational establishments, but education projects often involve creative non-standard solutions, such as in the case of the Queen Mary University London (see page 108). We also cooperate with local schools and universities in Prague giving students the chance to visit the factory and see first hand how TECHO applies its sustainable development principles in practice. Foreword by Jiri Kejval Chairman of the Board of Directors Educating by example and protecting the environment – progress without pain.

2 Contents The environment 8 Eva Jiricna 28 Kubik 39 Arkus A 40 DOX Education 44 Green shoots 71 Focus 72 Queen Margaret University 76 Platform 80 Alva collection 94 NEW PORG 96 Sidiz 100 NTK 102 IQ 112 The University of Economics 115 Esprit 116 Pedestals 122 Element 124 Cabinets 126 WOT 12 TECHO Production 4

3 Education 22 WOT executive 24 Arkus C 47 Horizont 54 Solar panels 58 Jiri Beranek 60 J. Selye University 84 Citis 86 Citis SN 89 Open Gate Babice 90 Prostor 107 Queen Mary UNIVERSITY OF LONDON 108 Students visit the TECHO- CENTRE in Prague 110 ATRIUM, University of Glamorgan 118 Scio 119 Storage systems 120 Novum 130 Screen System 132 Techo Showrooms 134 DESIGN SLOVAKIA NGO 111

4 Tec At the heart of our operations is the TECHO production facility and headquarters in Prague. This site was acquired by TECHO in the early 90s and since then the production facility has been totally modernised into what is now a state-of-the-art furniture factory. This is a process that is still continuing and our shareholders, the Dutch office furniture giant Royal Ahrend, has approved further investment into modern production machinery. As our business has grown, so has our production facility with output now several times what it was ten years ago. This expansion has gone hand in hand with increases in production efficiency, making the TECHO Prague Hostivar facility one of the most modern furniture factories in Central and Eastern Europe. TECHO is almost unique in the breadth of its product range that is produced in- house. From standard desks and pedestals to metal cabinets and custom-made furniture – all produced at Prague Hostivar.

5 cho Production With every capacity enhancement, the factory layout has changed to ensure the most efficient throughput of work – from the raw material stores to the finished product stores and dispatch. We also have a tried and tested system of feedback from the production operation to the design engineers and production engineers. This ensures that our products are continually improved to simplify production processes and minimise the amount of material used. The entire factory is geared up to reduce environmental impact – whether in the form of reduced emissions, modified production processes, a comprehensive waste management operation or supplier auditing on environmental criteria. Again, TECHO is a leader in this area and sets the example for other CEE producers to follow. Because our factory is located within the city boundaries of Prague, and in a residential area, we are subject to stricter environmental standards and greater attention from the environmental protection authorities. This provides extra assurance to our customers that we fulfil all the applicable European environmental standards. Over the past 10 years we have invested significant sums of money in making our factory environmentally friendly. With respect to air and water pollution our factory works to Scandinavian standards, which are significantly stricter than the EU standards. Our emissions are only 10% of the limit permissible according to EU standards.

6 As a furniture producer, the raw material we use most of in our production is wood. We do not and have never used any tropical hard woods in our production – not even for veneers. On principle we do not agree with such use of these precious resources. We have always pursued our production activities on the basis of the conviction that we should promote sustainable forest management. This conviction took concrete form when the company decided to subscribe to the C–o–C system and, after fulfilling the conditions set by the PEFC Council, which was verified by an independent auditor, it was awarded certification confirming implementation of a system ensuring verification of C–o–C (Chain of Custody) for wood. This system under the PEFC umbrella organisation promotes sustainable forest management. Under this system we can only purchase wood material from suppliers that are able to guarantee that the wood comes from non-controversial sources. This guarantees that all our wood material comes from sustainably managed forests. Woodmaterial–C-o-Ccertification

“Don’t blow it – good planets are hard to find.” Quoted in Time 7

88 TECHO has become the first FISP (Furniture Industry Sustainability Programme) member and certificate holder with its manufacturing base outside Great Britain. The main objective of this programme is to ensure best practice with regards to a company’s relationship to the environment and corporate social responsibility in general. It was launched in 2006 by the Furniture Industry Environmental Committee. The FISP certificate is awarded to companies whose production technology and products fulfil strict criteria for protection of the environment. Members of FISP demonstrate an overriding interest in sustainable development. The programme concentrates on reducing negative impact on the environment and society; primarily by reducing the consumption of natural resources and the production of waste. The main criteria according to which certification is assessed are as follows: attitude to the environment, emissions, waste and rubbish, energy, transport, service life and recycling. Furniture Industry Sustainability Programme – FISP

9 When you hear the words factory, industry, production, perhaps you instinctively also think of pollution and waste. This is an association that companies, certainly in Europe, have been working hard to break. TECHO, with its production facility in a residential area of Prague, has been one of the leaders in operating a ‘green’ factory. And our responsibility does not stop at the factory gates – delivery, installation, use and eventual disposal or renovation of our products, these are all areas covered by our environmental policy. We all hear these days about the importance of being “environmentally friendly”, but what does this actually mean for a company like TECHO? What are we doing as a company, as well as a collection of individuals, to protect the environment? We are all part of the environment and stand to benefit or suffer equally depending on whether the environment improves or deteriorates. To put it into modern business language – we are all stakeholders in the environment. As a company we can easily parade our certificates showing how environmentally friendly we are, but more important perhaps is attitude. As staff become more passionate about the environment it increasingly becomes the case that it is not the company insisting that the staff behave in a certain way, but rather employees taking the initiative and dictating how the company should behave. It is also important to differentiate between meeting legal requirements – which all companies have to do – and additional measures that a company chooses to adopt because they feel it is the right thing to do. To start with many employees (not just at TECHO) where rather skeptical about environmental initiatives, and perhaps saw them as unnecessary extra work. Now, however, our employees are converts to the cause – and they are the process drivers. It is a subject that generates a lot of passion. The media has also helped to concentrate minds over the past decade. It became clear to everyone that there is a background to the environmental measures. It is a global issue in which we all have our role to play. In our environmental efforts we are aided and supported by our parent company, Ahrend, which was established over a century ago. They take a long-term view with corporate social responsibility being at the core of all its business activities. At TECHO, Caring for the environment has long been an integral part of our business practice and TECHO is recognised as a pioneer of responsible environmental management in its field in Central and Eastern Europe. What does this mean in practice in terms of actions rather than just words? Theenvironment TECHO

10 Tec Transport Unfortunately it is currently not possible to avoid the use of road transport – and thus the combustion of fossil fuels. Nevertheless, we try to make road transport as efficient as possible. We use lorries that conform to EURO 4 or 5, we transport products in such a way that makes most effective use of load capacity, choose the most fuel efficient routes and use local storage hubs – all with the aim of reducing fuel consumed per product delivered. Promoting the concept of sustainability After being successfully audited, TECHO, a.s. is the first non-British company to become a full member of the Furniture Industry Sustainability Programme (FISP). Environmentally friendly by design We design our products for minimum environmental impact. Material content is reduced, we use materials that can be recycled and ensure that our products can easily be disassembled into separate recyclable components. Packaging We have a goal of reducing the use of packaging material by 10% each year. We have been achieving this even in years when production output has increased by 20%.

11 choAdministration activities We actively reduce the amount of paper we use, we promote the reuse of paper (reverse side) and then it is collected for recycling. Plastic bottles are also collected in the office for recycling. Whilst we are proud of our record on the environment we are fully aware that this is an area that is developing very rapidly. It is certain that in 10 or 20 years time what is considered environmentally friendly today will be considered poor or even inadequate. Our customers are demanding ever greater efforts on the part of their furniture suppliers to reduce environmental impact. We are therefore committed to the continual improvement of our environmental record in order to remain a trend setter in this field rather than a trend follower. Reduce,Reuse,Recycle Production Emissions well below strict international standards (in fact, they are only 10% of the EU permissible limits), elimination of harmful materials from the production process, investment in the latest technology and machinery, all waste streams are analysed and regulated using the 3 Rs concept (Reduce, Reuse and Recycle). Energy saving From energy saving bulbs to more efficient machinery and the reuse of heat from the paint shop, TECHO is continually striving to reduce power consumption. Solar panels have been installed on site to generate electricity. They currently only produce a very small proportion of our energy needs, but as we install further arrays of panels and become more efficient in the way we consume electricity, this proportion will increase.

12 ARTWORKSBYJANKUBICEK,JAKUBFLEJSAR/PHOTOBYIVETAKOPICOVA

13 W O T WOT Desk System from TECHO TECHO won a red dot award, one of the most prestigious international awards for industrial design, for its universal desking system WOT. The red dot design awards are awarded annually by the Design Zentrum Nordrhein Westfalen in Essen, Germany. WOT received its award on the basis of assessment by a jury of thirty leading designers and design experts from over 20 countries.

Ilove mornings when I don’t have to rush off anywhere. I make a cup of tea, leaf through beautiful books and let myself be carried away. “14

15 ARTWORKSBYMICHALPECHOUCEK/PHOTOTAKENBYIVETAKOPICOVAATDOX

WOT Designed by Hans Verboom and ADR Studio – Ales Lapka, Petr Kolar “Thanks to the use of an ultra light sandwich desktop with an aluminium honeycomb core, a whole range of new opportunities presented themselves. The desktop is self supporting so no frame is required and material savings of 30% are possible” Hans Verboom „I like simple forms that are completely subordinate to function. The new engineering solution of the desktop material helped to achieve this, and it is also environmentally friendly” Petr Kolar It is rare to have a modern desk that looks at home both in a traditional setting and a modern open space office. WOT accomplishes this brilliantly. 16

Our honeycomb design allows a large reduction in material and a refreshing lightness. 17 worksurfacefinishesplexiglassscreensframefinishes Certificates EN 527-2 ISO 9001 ISO 14001 OHSAS 18001 CFCS 1004 FSC STD 40-004 Furniture Industry Sustainability Programme - Full Member R 5413 wild pear W400 white RAL9022 silver RAL9010 white frosted orange brown R 5413 wild pear RAL9010 white R 5413 wild pear RAL9022 silver W400 white RAL9010 white W400 white RAL9022 silver WOT desks combine aluminium legs with attractive yet light worksurfaces. This merging of lightness and stability enhances the office environment. WOT desktops have the look of a solid traditional worksurface without all the bulk. Worksurfaces Worksurface Extensions 1800 800x1200 800x1400 800x1600 800x1800 800 2000 1000 1200 1400 450

WOT also offers special plexi screens in a variety of colours that add a degree of privacy and liven up the office. 18 WOT

The WOT range includes a large number of functional storage units designed to meet the filing needs of a modern company. 19

The work of an architect involves a lot of sitting on designer chairs at designer desks full of papers, computers, tables and unfinished cups of coffee. Our office is multifunctional. At the drop of a hat it can be transformed into a games area and then we have hours of fun trying to determine which books on architecture and design have the best surface for striking a ping pong ball.“20

21 ARTWORKBYVERAJANOUSKOVA/PHOTOTAKENBYIVETAKOPICOVAATADR

22 “Treat people as if they are what they should be and you will help them become what they are capable of being.” G O E T H E Warhol – Goethe 1982

23 In combination with the architecture of a building, the furnishings provide a powerful tool for creating and communicating the identity of an educational establishment. TECHO works closely at all stages of a project with the architects, designers and client. Our goal is to create the best learning environment – comfortable and ergonomic furniture that fulfils all the aesthetic requirements of the overall space concept. This cooperation, along with the quality of TECHO’s products and services, ensures the success of our education projects. TECHO has been very proactive in delivering complete furniture solutions to the education sector. Our recent references include Queen Mary University London, Queen Margaret University Edinburgh and the University of Glamorgan. Every project has its specific challenges. For the Queen Mary we designed and delivered special desks with integrated storage above the desktop. In order to secure the order for Queen Margaret we had to demonstrate the environmental sustainability of our operations. The deciding factor for the University of Glamorgan was time – just four weeks from space planning to the installation of 400 workstations. Whatever the requirements TECHO is able to offer a high-quality and cost effective solution backed up by our impeccable customer service. That is why architects, dealers and clients keep returning to us – we understand what is important to them and that it’s their reputation at stake. Ensuring 100% customer satisfaction is what TECHO has built its reputation on. Education

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25 ARTWORKBYMATEJKREN/PHOTOTAKENBYIVETAKOPICOVAATDOX

WOTexecutive 1 2 Designed by Hans Verboom and ADR Studio – Ales Lapka, Petr Kolar The WOT executive desk has been developed specifically with managers in mind. With its stylish design, free of any separate beams or supports, it will help to create the ideal executive working environment. Cables on a classic desk are the worry lines and wrinkles that can spoil the perfect look. No plastic surgery required here though – just clever cable management to preserve the elegance of WOT. 26

27 Worksurfaces worksurfacefinishesframefinishes 2000 1000 1200 Certificates EN 527-2 ISO 9001 ISO 14001 OHSAS 18001 CFCS 1004 FSC STD 40-004 Furniture Industry Sustainability Programme - Full Member RAL9010 white RAL9004 black high-polish aluminium finish high-polish aluminium finish Creme Mokka In this executive line the desktop actually forms a structural component of the desk itself. All the extra supporting components normally required for an office desk have been eliminated. This gives our desk a more traditional feel, evoking a feeling of continuity between modern innovation and traditional craftsmanship. Creme Mokka

28 You do not learn about architecture from people, but from things (Interview with Eva Jiricna) jir icna ji ricn a jiric na jiri cna jir icna j iricn ajiri cnajiricnajiricn a jiric na jiri cna jir icna Your architecture is very unrestrained and free. The philoso- pher Karl Popper once said that freedom is not a state, but rather the activity of trial and error. Does this thought also apply in architecture? I have always maintained that a person only learns from mistakes. If you are successful in achieving something without experiencing any difficulties, you will take that work for granted and not attach much value to it. In life, however, you always come up against some problem or other. These problems take the form of crossroads where you have to stop, admit there is a problem, and decide how to proceed. Only problems generate moments that pave the way forward. I am convinced that the journey of every individual is one of error and correction. Life is full of decisions as to whether to do something or not, but we all nevertheless still make the same or similar mistakes. All fairytales are based on this, and it is the same in architecture. Mistakes and poor assumptions, misjudging situations and overestimating oneself or those with whom you work and rely on is more or less a part of every day work. And what about creative freedom? Freedom is just about pushing back certain boundaries. Freedom without limits is anarchy, and that is not part of my personal experience. I would rather say that as you get older, your increased knowledge and experience extends your own personal freedom. On the other hand, however, you have more fear. At the start when you only know a little you nevertheless have courage in abundance. When you become aware of all the things that could have gone wrong with the potential consequences, fear, personal discipline, and even the decision that you must take risks to go forward, weighs one down with responsibility. At the start of a professional career these decisions are non-existent as you jump into things like an untamed animal. Later you are more aware of the risk and you also know that at the right time you have to decide whether to accept the risk or not, because the worst thing in life is not to take any risks. As long ago as ancient times they said that risk is an inseparable part of any life of achievement… Yes, but a person only realises this later. At the start a person takes risks because he is stupid and unaware of the risks. A mature adult takes risks because he has decided to accept the risk, but we don’t expect that we will make a mistake in the end.

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30 Client: Tomas Bata University, Zlin, Czech Republic Location: Zlin, Czech Republic Product: Horizont, Esprit, Platform, Novum Architect: Eva Jiricna

Only problems generate moments that pave the way forward 31 You recently celebrated an anniversary – your professional career has now spanned fifty years. This is certainly a good time to take stock. Can you give a few examples of the types of mistakes that have pushed you forward? For example, some time ago we did a glass staircase and we all thought that we had the right solution. Every staircase is always a bit of a problem because the individual steps sag slightly when stepped on. In order to prevent this bending, we came up with the idea of sticking a small support from toughened glass under the front edge of the step. Structurally it worked; it was a fantastic solution that also looked good. The staircase was installed and I was the first person to test it. As I climbed the stairs, despite being light, I heard the steps under me cracking. When the structural engineer, who is quite a bit heavier than me, followed, everything cracked. We then determined that the thrust in the small toughened support transmitted the tensile force of the un- toughened glass, and because these materials have different elasticity they worked against each other. Since then I have been much more humble in my approach to glass: I know my capabilities, and when using glass, which I like doing, I can be almost hysterical and I check everything umpteen times. If before I asked three times about the properties of glass, I now ask a hundred and fifty times and I consider all the potential dangers that I can think of. Even so, I still know that I cannot provide any guarantee that a mistake will not be made, and I say this to all my clients. It takes time, however, to reach this stage; perhaps it only really happens when taking stock in connection with an anniversary. Do you remember any similar example? Yes, one that concerns the Orangery that I did for Prague Castle. A problem occurred despite the fact that we were working with a very reliable company that precisely produced all the required components. As soon as we started to erect it, the entire Orangery started to move. For a long time we couldn’t figure out why. In the end we worked it out: the company had purchased screws in England but had made the holes with a German drill. This meant that the cone angle of the hole was different to that of the screw heads and consequently they did not transfer the tensile force. Because of this mistake we had to re-drill five hundred holes so that we could hand the construction over to the customer. This was a typical mistake that can only happen in a global company that interprets standards differently. These are technical mistakes. If we look deeper into your life and look for mistakes or decisions that have affected the direction of your life, what examples stand out for you? First I must admit that from a commercial perspective I am useless. I have therefore never been too serious about turning my office into a business that would be sufficiently profit making. For this reason my employees have not had the opportunity to earn large bonuses. I myself have not been able to take much money out of the business. Perhaps my greatest mistake is that I have never got to grips with this problem professionally. It is too late to do anything about that now. In Prague I am lucky that I have a partner who was good enough to take on the commercial and administration side, and thanks to this the company there works better than the one in England. I have always needed someone for this type of work, but as is the way with life, every such person sets up on their own and I must look for someone else again. If I could have my life again, I would make every effort not to repeat this mistake. It is too late for this now unfortunately and my colleagues will have to live with my faults. That is an imperfection, but at the same time you were freed from these pecuniary worries and could concentrate fully on architecture. That is a certain advantage… That is also true. I had just architecture and my employees – fifteen to twenty of them – and in every situation I have to do my best for them. They are my family. If we return to architecture: What you do has been termed poetic minimalism. How did this style develop, where are its roots? In architecture a person is always learning – not from people but from things. The young are always convinced that all those who are older and more experienced are stupid and should move aside. From what I have read about you, you never thought this way yourself. Your father was also an architect who worked, for example, on the EXPO 58 and Osaka – international exhibitions, and from a young age you appreciated this… It is true that from a young age I appreciated people who had achieved something. However, at the same time I, like all young people, had great ambitions: to build a tall building or a whole town. At that time I never considered that I would be involved in interiors – that was not my life goal. I had to grow up a bit before I realised that all famous architects concerned themselves with interiors. At the start of a professional career one does not often attach importance to small jobs or orders. On the other hand, even though I felt when I was young that I was meant to do great projects, I never turned down small jobs. I was always interested in any problem; I always submerged myself into solving a problem with great verve and enthusiasm, even if it was just a table leg or drawer. Deep down I felt it was not my place to reject work, no matter how small. As soon as there is a question before me I start to look for an answer; my mind engages in the problem and I work on it until I come up with a solution. That is the way I have always been.

I am the sort of person who must work everything out, and who wants to follow every detail through to the end, down to the last washer 32 In the end it was, I believe, with interiors, what you term as small orders for boutiques, that you made your name in London. I started out working for a large company; we built a town on the water – no poetry was involved. This was the building of a large marina complex in Brighton including housing, exhibition space, restaurants, the marina itself and an artificial island in the middle of the water. It was a purely technical matter. For almost the whole time I had my boots on. After ten years I moved from this work straight to interiors. What period was this? This was at the time when England was in the grips of the so-called high-tech era. This was characterised by an admiration of technology used originally for military purposes and which helped the allies win the Second World War. The whole of my generation that studied in the fifties and sixties were fascinated by this technology and attempted to put it to peaceful use. It appeared to us then that we would be able to solve all problems in this way: housing, which people had lost during the war, planning of new towns, transport etc. Everything seemed achievable. People were convinced that it was possible to transfer technology from one field to another and that, for example, the technology that took man to the moon could be put to use on Earth. This was the main driving force of my generation, or more specifically my British colleagues. How were you able to link this high-tech to your Czech experience… I was lucky in my teachers: I studied under Frágner and Štursa, people who participated in the process of constructing and conceiving the function of architecture during the interwar years and they consequently had a very refined feeling for the quality of materials and detail. Of course they weren’t successful in everything. The previously mentioned risk always brings with it practical failures which a person must learn to deal with. Nevertheless, this generation of modernists taught me something fundamental; responsibility for detail. This helped me a great deal in England. But perhaps it’s also partly down to my nature; I am the sort of person who must work everything out, and who wants to follow every detail through to the end, down to the last washer. What characterises high-tech? High-tech, that is admiration for the technical, can be seen in architecture in terms of exaggerated details: everything is enlarged, from hinges on doors to screws, which must be at least three times larger than necessary. In the large company where I was employed, I worked with structural engineer Ove Arup. He was a man who dedicated his whole life to using knowledge of structures to minimise the use of material. He used structural analysis to create the most economic solution. As a member of the war generation, he was well aware of the need to save materials. He was also aware that construction work should be less labour intensive. What I later applied to interiors I learnt to a certain extent from him. On one hand I wanted to be part of the high-tech group, but on the other hand I had a problem with this because I did not like what was being produced so much. I did not want to do large door handles for shops and flats, as they were doing in the late sixties and early seventies when my colleagues were still influenced by constructions from the war: bunkers and pontoons on which military hardware was moved. What led you to poetic minimalism? I had the idea that I would try to civilise technology. I wanted to humanise details because over- sized details, such as large hinges from bunkers, bothered me; I didn’t like them. I brought a woman’s insight to my architecture and transformed everything into lace. So no story such as Vlado Miluničhas tried to apply to your architecture, or any philosophy such as proposed by Bořek Šípek, … No, never. I have always been interested only in the practical side and aesthetic experience. Words alone never resolve anything in architecture; much more important for me is personal perception. It is for someone else to put it into a historical context – that is not my job. We primarily perceive architecture visually. The fact that someone has told us a beautiful story about it does not change the result. You have taught at universities in Great Britain and the Czech Republic and you have a lot of pedagogical experience; in your opinion what can someone be taught about architecture? The only thing that can be taught is to learn. A teacher is limited by age and his/her students already live in a different context in which the teacher’s experience is not applicable for them. Today I myself more or less work through my routine, and this is not good for students. A student should be able to learn to think independently and come up with his own opinion with respect to the given situation and tasks he is faced with. The worst thing is for a student to start to imitate his teacher. Copying is a terrible thing. Anything that has already been said, written or built is worthless as a copy. A lecturer must help students to find a way to reveal their own originality. Any worthwhile artistic performance is a pure expression of a person’s individuality. It is important for a teacher to have the ability to learn to think on the same wavelength as students, and they must have sufficient empathy to follow a student’s train of thought. He must force them to learn to provide reasoning for their thought process. That is the role for a good teacher. A professor must allow his students to spread their wings.

33 Freedomwithoutlimitsisanarchy

In architecture a person is always learning – not from people but from things 34

The world in twenty years time will be totally different, but in precisely what ways is next to impossible to imagine 35 I never forget one night at the Prague academy when professor Frágner fired question after question at me. Tired and wanting my bed I responded to one of his questions with “what does that have to do with architecture?” Although he let me go, he gave me the task of finding three things that have nothing to do with architecture. I have to admit that this is a task I have still not completed. What is the difference between studying in England and in the Czech Republic? Among students there is no great difference. The difference is mainly in what universities in the two countries expect of them. A good student, from whatever country or university, will excel, shine and outstrip the others. A bad student on the other hand will be lost in the crowd. A good student can be identified by intellectual ability, sensitivity, creativity and astute thinking. After graduating, such a student can earn a living at any profession. Not only architecture, but perhaps as a sculptor, photographer, designer, writer or businessman. University should just help him to learn to look at the world, analyse it and synthesize it. These skills that are learnt in relation to architecture can then be applied in any field. My experience from lecturing in Germany, Bohemia and Moravia is that students here in the Czech Republic are less active, listening to lectures from the background… That is perhaps true, but from my thirteen years teaching experience it strikes me that here there are similarly able and talented people as in England, although here much less demands are made of them. Can you be more specific? For example, dissertations here are very weak. Often it looks that they have been prepared by students over just a couple of weeks. This would be unthinkable in England. There students work on their dissertation for at least half a year; their portfolio has hundreds of sheets, extensive reasoning, analysis of the problem and of course this is all accompanied by visualisations – models or computer simulations. The viva lasts half an hour there; here often just a few minutes. However, with regards to the knowledge base, students here are good and I don’t see any large difference. Czech graduates from UMPRUM can be found working at a range of leading architectural offices around the world, such as Zaha Hadid in London, KLF or Richard Rogers etc. As the old saying goes – there are as many ways to heaven as there are to hell. In recent years there has been a lot of talk about environmentally friendly architecture and that the crisis is not a catastrophe, but a great opportunity for fundamental change. What do you think of this? The crisis, as with every similar situation, forces people to find the most appropriate response and this provides motivation. We experienced this after the Second World War, and after 1989, and today this energy has somewhat evaporated here in the Czech Republic. I hope that this crisis will be a reason for a new start here too. If we look back we can see – and we must admit – that we wasted so much. Everyone wanted the best and no one was interested in how much it cost or what damage it caused to the planet. This must change fundamentally. The crisis should change priorities and teach us how to think differently. In a crisis it is normal that the first thing to be cut is investment in research. This time it must be different – new technology and research will have to be in first place. Anyone not investing into this area will fail. Our situation will not be solved with houses made from clay or travel restrictions, but rather through energy efficient houses and environmentally friendly vehicles using new fuels. It is not worth investing in saving old companies such as Ford, Chrysler or Opel, but money should be used to develop effective environmentally friendly cars. When a company arrives at a certain technological-cultural level, it should not then give up, but should value this attainment and continue the development for the greater benefit of mankind and the planet. It is all about learning to live sensibly. It is necessary to understand that a range of things can serve many people. A person must have a better awareness that he himself is not as important as the fact that he is part of society. Can you see any signs of this new way of thinking? I see it in the younger generations. In London I live in a building where my neighbours have two young children. These children, for example, are able to sort rubbish for recycling far better than their parents, they can use computers better because they have grown up with them, and they will have completely different requirements about how things should look. They will, in my opinion, have completely new ideas about living space – accommodation requirements will be of a fundamentally different type. These children no longer have a fixation with books: they will just borrow them or read everything on a computer; they will not want so many clothes, they ride bikes and like travelling by train. The deepening crisis will intensify these changes and it will be necessary to invest an incomparably greater amount into alternative energy sources, which will lead us to a different way of thinking. The world in twenty years time will be totally different, but in precisely what ways is next to impossible to imagine. Eva Jiricna was talking to Karel Hvizdala

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37 not to take any risksThe most important Prague work is without doubt the New Orangery at Prague Castle with its unique steel construction. The construction was supported by Olga Havlova and financial support from Canadian patron Jennifer Allen Simmons. In 2007 she was chairwoman of the committee to choose a new building for the National Library. She is evidently the only woman of Czech birth who has been made a Commander of the British Empire, and she is also the only living woman to be included among the pioneers of 20th Century design among names such as Le Corbusier, Frank Lloyd Wright and Rodchenko. She has also received recognition in the form of the title Royal Designer for Industry, an Excellence Award for contribution to international design in Mexico, she was president of the Architecture Association in London and is a member of the Royal Academy of Arts and an honorary member of the American Institute of Architects. Eva Jiricna has received honorary doctorates from the Southampton Institute, the Technical University in Brno, Sheffield University, the Metropolitan University in London and most recently the Technical University in Bratislava and the Tomas Bata University in Zlín. BIOGRAPHY: Eva Jiricna (* 3 March, 1939) is a Czech born British architect and designer living in Great Britain. She graduated in Architecture and Urbanism from the in Prague and then AVU under; in 1965 she started work at UBOK in Prague. In the summer of she left for London and work experience at the architecture office of the GLC (Greater London Council), but the Czech authorities prevented her return. She joined the studio Louis de Soisson, where she worked on the design of a marina in Brighton. She worked for two years with renowned architect Richard Rogers. Jiricna is well known for her interior designs for London fashion stores and boutiques around the world. In Prague she shares a studio with architect Petr Vagner (AI Design Praha) and she has another company in London (Eva Jiricna Architects). From to 2007 she was a professor and head of the architecture studio at in Prague. She designed, for example, a new wing of Ove Arup’s house in London and the Canada Water Bus Station in London. Recently she created exhibition space for the Victoria and Albert Museum. After 1990 she also received a number of orders in the Czech Republic, such as a footbridge in Brno, the austere but elegant Joseph hotel in the Prague Old Town, an apartment and shopping building also in Prague, and several interiors – e.g. in the Gehry Dancing House, space for the British Council and an attic apartment for Karel Schwarzenberk. Jiricna is also the architect behind the renovation of the Gothic Church of St. Anna in the Old Town, which was undertaken in cooperation with the Fund of President Havel. Recently she has been working on designs for a university and cultural centre in Zlin. For the moment her design of a steel footbridge in the former Ostrava Karonina remains on paper.

Jan Kaplicky: His Own Way By philosophy and nature, Jan Kaplicky was mainly an architect, but his typical creative touch can be seen in many other artistic disciplines. His buildings are definitely outstanding and controversial; he was often inspired by natural forms – cobwebs, butterfly’s wings, or fish scales. The exhibition curator is internationally renowned Czech/British architect and designer Eva Jiricna. 38 E X H I B I T I O N J A N K A P L I C K Y : H I S O W N W A Y, D O X / E X H I B I T I O N C U R A T O R E V A J I R I C N A / P H O T O B Y I V E T A K O P I C O V A

39 Kubik Createacomfort zonewithTECHO’s Kubikchair The elegant design of this chair is straight from the ADR drawing board – a never-ending source of winning designs for us. With attention to detail and quality, TECHO has turned the ADR design into an extremely comfortable and hardwearing chair – a touch of luxury for a reasonable price. It is hand- crafted on a wooden frame which supports black leather upholstery (in the spirit of Henry Ford, black is the only colour we offer). Take time out of your busy schedule to sink into a Kubik at any of the TECHO showrooms, and we will throw in a coffee. You will be able to enjoy your coffee in peace as we are confident that this chair sells itself – no disturbing sales patter required. KUBIK chair – extreme comfort The Kubik design follows the ADR philosophy of form subordinate to function. Certificates ISO 9001 ISO 14001 OHSAS 18001 CFCS 1004 FSC STD 40-004 Furniture Industry Sustainability Programme - Full Member

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According to this layout plan the offices will be located under that heap of rubble. Right, let’s get this furniture back on the lorry; we obviously won’t be installing it today! The project manager is certain that the rubble will be removed and floor laid by tomorrow morning, so get ready for an early start. “ “ 41

Arkus A 42 Design: Hans Verboom The Arkus desk system has aged so well because of its versatility. TECHO is primarily a project furnisher rather than a furniture retailer. The big advantage of Arkus is that it is very good in a supporting role. It can always be adapted for a given project. The Arkus desk system has been one of the mainstays of our product portfolio since its launch in 1996. It still looks as “right” today as it did then – no major facelifts required. It was designed to look modern regardless of changing workplace fashions. We make no apologies for the fact that we refuse to compromise the pure function of our desking systems by following trends or fads. A functional desking system that allows the workplace atmosphere to be moulded and shaped according to the wishes of the interior architect. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

43 Worksurface extensions Worksurfaces worksurfacefinishesframefinishes R 5330 beech W400 white R 5413 wild pear U 1188 grey RAL9007 gunmetal RAL9010 white RAL9004 black RAL9022 silver 2000 600 800 1200 1400 1600 1800 800 1600 460 800 9001800 800 1000 460 1800 1600 1200 600 800 1800 1600 1200 800 800 1800 1600 1000 1200 600 1200 600 1600 1000 450 800 801 1100 800 800 350 1625 1600 450 Certificates EN 527-2 ISO 9001 ISO 14001 OHSAS 18001 CFCS 1004 FSC STD 40-004 Furniture Industry Sustainability Programme - Full Member Standard workstations are now a lot smaller than in 1996 – is this a problem for Arkus? Not at all – it has adapted to the changing times with a whole range of modern configurations. It remains one of our bestsellers with almost 200,000 Arkus workstations sold in total. The Arkus system is a worthy enhancement to an environment where a high value is placed on the flexibility of office furniture. 9

Public events and educational programs: I Inform and Communicate – DOX monitors activities throughout all creative disciplines, through lectures, concerts, screenings, and performances. In cooperation with other artists and cultural institutions, these activities reflect a local and international context. I Educate – DOX offers a wide range of educational programs to various age and interest groups. Programs are organized in cooperation with schools of all categories, including further and adult education. 44

IExploreandExperiment–DOXcooperateswithuniversitiesandartschoolsonspecialprojects. IIntegrate–DOXisaforumforideasandaplacefortheformationofidentity,aplaceforsocialinteraction reachingfarbeyondtherealmofart.DOXalsoorganizesreadings,discussions,andconferencesfocusedon currenteventsinconjunctionwiththemassmediaandprivateandpublicinstitutions. www.doxprague.org 45

46 46 A R T P R A G U E Exhibition Hall Manes, Masarykovo nábřeží 250, Prague 1, www.artprague.cz International Contemporary Art Fair Art Prague InvestinArt,InvestintheFuture GENERAL PARTNER

Iknow places where I feel a chill down my spine. I know that in that corner I was possibly the victim of stoning, or was it otherwise? One thing I know for sure is that I am bound up with the wooden beams and stones, with hay and fire, with water and the blood of others. Ultimately, we dance with the shamen of times past - only to a different rhythm. “ “ 47 ARTWORKBYJIRIBERANEK/PHOTOTAKENBYIVETAKOPICOVAINTHEPRAGUETECHOCENTRE

Arkus C 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Design: Hans Verboom Arkus desks are so versatile that they can be configured to serve as office desks, conference tables, or call centre workstations. Elegant enough for senior managers with private offices, Arkus is also ideal for open space offices. 48

49 Certificates EN 527-2 ISO 9001 ISO 14001 OHSAS 18001 CFCS 1004 FSC STD 40-004 Furniture Industry Sustainability Programme - Full Member Versatile and functional, the Arkus solution combines simplicity, strength and an elegant aestethic for today’s interiors. When launched it was revolutionary being one of the early beam-system desks. Configuration flexibility has kept it at the top of its class – it has an elegant practicality that does not age. It may have been launched last century, but it is a 21st century desk. worksurfacefinishesframefinishes R 5330 beech W400 white R 5413 wild pear U 1188 grey RAL9007 gunmetal RAL9010 white RAL9004 black RAL9022 silver Worksurface extensions Worksurfaces 2000 600 800 1200 1400 1600 1800 800 1600 460 800 900 1800 800 1000 460 1800 1600 1200 600 800 1800 1600 1200 800 800 1800 1600 1000 1200 600 1200 600 1600 1000 450 800 801 1100 800 800 350 1625 1600 450 10

Hybrid H Our desk systems have continued to develop to stay at the forefront of office design by providing customers the functionality they require. In the Hybrid, our designers have added an elegant and integral storage system to create the ultimate TECHO workstation. Desktops are available in a variety of shapes to accommodate the different jobs and tasks for which they will be used. Providing the right desk for the given job increases both user comfort and office productivity. Ergonomics is about efficiency as well as comfort. 50

51 P H O T O Tono Stano Jan Lauschnam Zdeněk Tmej Jan Saudek Gabina Václav Chochola Karel Ludwig Alois Nožička Jan Svoboda Jan Švankmajer Miroslav Tichý Karel Hájek Dušan Šimánek Magdaléna Bláhová Jindřich Štreit Jiří Stach Emila Medková Eva Fuka Veronika Bromová František Drtikol Ladislav Sitenský Josef Sudek www.praguefoto.cz

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54 PHOTOTAKENBYIVETAKOPICOVAATTHEWORLDOFBOTANICUS

Open space is open space, and so one day I hit the road. Today a mobile office for me does not mean connection to the company server; it is rather a state of mind. At least that’s what I said when Mr Mencák hitched up the horses. We set off and eventually even the Internet connection disappeared. Not that there was no coverage in the region, but when you decide for this open space there comes a time when the OFF button falls in with the rhythm of the hooves. That is what happened to me, and I discovered the concept of extreme open space – out in the open air. “ “ 55

56 Design: ADR Petr Kolar, Ales Lapka Simple form and attention to function are the principles applied to this design. As a result it has the elegance and timeless character that have become the TECHO hallmark. Function, aesthetics, simplicity and flexibility are essential elements in the contemporary workplace, and are all reflected in the Horizont desk system. Horizont can blend into any environment and is now our best selling desk. It is a universal system popular with architects and designers for its ability to match and enhance their creativeness. Hori zont 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

57 Certificates EN 527-2 ISO 9001 ISO 14001 OHSAS 18001 CFCS 1004 FSC STD 40-004 Furniture Industry Sustainability Programme - Full Member Horizont offers several options for cable management, all of which are concealed under the desktops to ensure that no cables interfere with the important tasks at hand. With its slightly slimmer profile, Horizont provides a new aesthetic option for managing your office tasks and utilising your space. From this angle you can appreciate the clever cable management options of Horizont. When sitting at the desk you will just take them for granted. worksurfacefinishesframefinishes R 5330 beech W400 white R 5413 wild pear U 1188 grey RAL9007 gunmetal RAL9010 white RAL9004 black RAL9022 silver Worksurface extensions Worksurfaces 2000 600 800 1200 1400 1600 1800 800 1600 460 800 900 1800 800 1000 460 1800 1600 1200 600 800 1800 1600 1200 800 800 1800 1600 1000 1200 600 1200 600 1600 1000 450 800 801 1100 800 800 350 1625 1600 450

Solar58

59 panels Solar panels have been installed on site to generate electricity. They currently only produce a very small proportion of our energy needs (2% when factory running at full capacity), but as we install further arrays of panels and become more efficient in the way we consume electricity, this proportion will increase.

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61 The Knoll of Time and Cobweb of Fences, 1972, Design for modelling the landscape, plaster of Paris Childhood’s Gramophone, 1970, wood The Search for Light - Incision into the Landscape, 1972, polychromed wood Meeting Jiří Beránek, one of the leading Czech sculptors of his generation and a professor of sculpture since the 1990s, means becoming part of his personal and artistic environment. His art, friendships and family are all brought together in the garden where my interview with him took place. We spent a warm summer’s afternoon sipping wine together as he talked about his life, the tranquillity broken only by birdsong, dogs barking and occasionally the whinnying of a horse his eldest daughter keeps stabled behind the family home. As the hours passed by, I realised how this place helps one to understand the man himself.

62 We’re sitting here in your garden in Koloděje near Prague that you also use as an outdoor studio. What does this garden mean to you? You can see at first glance that it’s a place where I work. Sometimes it’s well suited to my needs, at other times less so, but I’ve never felt compelled to get a ‘proper’ studio. I’ve always found that everything I need to do can be done in my garden. Gradually this studio, this garden, is changing into something that symbolises my way of thinking. It’s plain to anyone looking in here over the fence: elsewhere you see all around you the victory of so-called shrub culture with its hedge-trimmers. I consider myself the guardian of the proper tree. It’s true what’s being said: that the tree is being lost from the Czech notion of the garden and environment. All we’re seeing are impotent little hedges, often not even that. I often have problems with my own wife who’d like to have rose-beds in our garden, but I always manage to stick an oak tree there instead. I’m simply an oak-lover. Wherever I travel, I try to bring back a seed or an acorn. I’ll take an acorn and plant it discreetly in my hedge, which people hate me for. They dislike me for this hedge alone. They’re often reporting me to the local authorities. What on earth for? Apparently for leaves flying on to public footpaths. And they complain that mothers can’t walk by with prams because of the blackberry bushes creeping out. And it’s true. I call it ‘attack of the greenery’ – even though the Green Party doesn’t function in this country, at least I do. In that hedge there are woody plants that define the countryside in the central Bohemian region – for example the blackthorn, the blackberry bush, the wild rose. In my eyes it’s so beautiful. My garden’s not just a studio – it’s a microcosmic expression of how I imagine the environment should be on a large scale. It’s an expression of what the relationship should be to a tree or an orchard. I feel that the orchard, for example, is losing its original meaning. My children didn’t even know what an orchard was when I asked them. The reason is that nowadays you rarely see orchards in the true sense, and if you do see them, they’re usually just fruit farms: everything grown on wires to facilitate mechanised picking. The orchard as part of the home, with trees to care for individually, has virtually ceased to exist. People don’t understand it. They ask me why I have old trees here and don’t sell off my garden as a building plot. Every week I find leaflets in my mailbox offering to buy our land. Once, everyone here had a large garden like this one. I’m always amazed by the way that often, when people in this country build a new house, they cram every available inch of land with the building itself, leaving very little open space between the houses themselves. If the laws were respected, only a third of the land you buy would be allowed to be built on – but making a noise about that would open a Pandora’s Box with fines being dished out. When someone buys a larger plot of land and respects the law, all they do is to fill their green space with shrubs and things that – in their view – don’t mess it up. It’s as if hatred has been cultivated towards the ordinary dandelion. You don’t even see daisies. As soon as people get back from work every day, they get going with the lawn mower and buzz – off they go. On Saturday and Sunday my head’s throbbing... Going back in your life now, I want to ask about your experiences as a student, your memories of the Prague Academy of Fine Arts where you studied sculpture under Professor Vincenc Makovský. I had the fortune to study during the mid-1960s when there was a general relaxing in the social climate here. It meant that although I wasn’t a [communist] Pioneer as a child, but a ‘bad boy’ who studied religion at home, I still got the chance to go to secondary art school in Prague. The situation in this country kept getting better and better, so I then had the chance to get to the Academy. Prior to that, I was accepted to colleges of architecture in both Prague and Bratislava because my father wanted at all costs for me to have a secure livelihood. In those days we were greater romantics and more independent-minded than young people today, and because I knew my father wanted something safe, I did the opposite. I left after two terms of studying architecture in Prague and applied to the Academy of Fine Arts because I wanted to be an artist. It was a decision I made myself – no one supported me in it, and to be honest I didn’t know what I was getting involved in. My father disowned me, but it didn’t last long and he invited me home for Christmas. Being a magnanimous person, he said he liked my stubbornness and set up a meeting with Vincenc Makovský, who was a tough man but sentimental at the same time. We met at Makovský’s villa in Brno and he got me very drunk on the plum spirit I’d brought him. In those days a professor was a great personality – whichever student he pointed to considered it a privilege to be able to assist him. Nowadays it would be considered against regulations. It was hard and self-disciplining work to study under Provenance Unknown, 1991-1992, wood, stone, 1300 x 900 x 2300 cm, “Baroque and the Present Day” symposium staged in 1992 at the Church of the Annunciation, Litoměřice, Czech Republic Resurrection, 1990, wood, 800 x 650 x 1200 cm, view of the installation at La Défense, Paris

In those days [the mid-1960s] we were greater romantics and more independent -minded than young people today 63 Makovský – we weren’t allowed to do anything else other than the figure. Correction wasn’t an option – if you modelled the figure badly, it went into the bin and you had to start again. It took the novice students a long time to work it out, because the older students weren’t allowed to tell them. For Makovský the scaffolding of the figure was important. If the figure was bent, he’d say ‘Throw it in the bin’, by which he didn’t mean that the modelling was bad but that the basis of the figure was bad. In sentimental moments, for example when someone was celebrating a birthday, he’d be willing to reveal what this basis actually was. It’s what I now impress on my own students. I’m understood less and less today when I tell them that getting the scaffolding of the figure right is half the battle. Few people realise that now. When Makovský died, the studio was taken over by Arnošt Paderlík, who for some reason tiptoed around me. I got used to a privileged position as Makovský’s lad. And by the time Karel Lidický replaced Paderlík, I was already well established. At that time I earned the status of an innovator, and by that stage I was already doing those figures/non-figures, those hollow, white symbolic figures. ...But openly I presume, because I hear from Czech artists who studied in the 1970s and ’80s that they did officially ‘acceptable’ work in the academy studio and their own real work at home, which is incomprehensible to anyone in the West... You shouldn’t forget that when I was at school I experienced the period of greatest openness during the 1960s, a time when even the establishment artists had to put on a more open-hearted appearance than before. My feelings are mixed. I’d love to renew that despotism because I can see sense in it now, no matter what I thought about it then. Nowadays students need it like a dose of salts, so to speak. That’s what I try to do in my teaching – to make the students work hard on the figure for at least two years. It’s not simply my personal opinion –I’m convinced it’s necessary in general. When you see a real figure, it’s a mistake simply to transfer its proportions, and what you see, to the model. Makovský paradoxically taught us abstract thought, because when you begin by studying the figure from inside, you see the figure like an X-ray. It’s the most difficult thing – to understand what’s most fundamental about the sculpture. He told us that the figure can completely battered, not even recognisable as a figure... But if the core is there... When the core is there, that’s the essential thing. It was Makovský’s despotic path that taught me the totally authentic basis of abstract thought. As an aside: it was a known fact that he didn’t want female students in his studio – and during his time as head of studio no girl was ever admitted. Which would be unthinkable now! As an art curator myself, I’m also curious about your exhibition activity and your feelings about it. I have to say that I’m getting sick of exhibiting at shows. What I’m planning to do is to cut off a branch off this tree here to make room for a gallery that will link up with my inhabitable sculpture [a tower-like wooden structure that Beránek constructed himself in his garden]. I’ll make a passageway, a kind of gallery wing. My sculptures will then form part of this structure since they’re always part of something. I’m really annoyed by the fact that when people acquire my sculptures, they are torn out of context. That’s not part of my philosophy. It would be good to have them here in my garden I think – a building that’s not a building, and my sculptures integrated into it. …Which leads me to another subject – architecture. I’m interested by the fact that you could have become an architect, and it seems to me that your work displays a strong feeling for architecture. How your sculptures stand, what their foundations are, what their structure is – that all seems essential to your work. That’s connected with we talked about earlier – with Makovský and the figure. I don’t know if anyone in Europe realised in the late 1960s that when you root a wooden beam in the ground and erect it – it’s a figure. If you use that beam to create a straight vertical line in the landscape, it’s a figure. Looking now at your inhabitable sculpture, what about your collaboration in ‘proper’ architecture? I know that you’ve worked for example with the Czech architect Petr Kolář, helping to design the façade of Golf Resort Hostivař. When I began teaching at the Academy of Arts, Architecture and Design in Prague, I taught modelling at the architecture department and Petr was one of my students. Word got round that my classes made sense and people starting attending them in greater numbers. To be honest I’m quite grateful to Petr for what he’s done for me over the past few years. His architecture is straightforward and practical, though it sometimes gives a playful impression as well. Our approaches have contrasted well – Petr has that ‘cool’ approach with glass and concrete; when you add to that a large ball that I’ve carved, a wooden sculpture that will naturally split over time, it works well in that kind of architecture. And Petr noticed that fact.

The Twilight of Memory, 1998, wood, peat bricks, hay, site-specific installation at the Belvedere Pavilion, Prague 64

65 Looking at another figure of contemporary architecture, the internationally renowned Eva Jiricna – given the sharp contrast between your world of ‘poor’ materials and her hi-tech world, how do view her work? I don’t know what Jiricna herself would say about me, but I feel a definite affinity between what we do. If you take her finest work, such as her greenhouse at Prague Castle, the essence is similar to a construction I might make out of twisted, cracked roots: it’s about statics. I use the materials I do because when I began working with them, they were the cheapest and most accessible. If I’d lived in the context that she did, I might well be using steel and concrete now, because they would be around me. I have the same desire to master space and work with it, so Jiricna isn’t an alien being to me. It’s about logic, about what the person of today needs. Her work is more about engineering and rationality, but then I also think I’m uncompromisingly rational – my sculpture has to stand firmly. It’s first and foremost about construction that can, additionally, have a frill to it. In that we share the same spirit. What about the relationship between your work and folk architecture? At first glance it might seem to be a source of inspiration. As to whether there’s some connection between my work and folk architecture with its traditional materials, I personally don’t think so. It’s true, though, that as a child I admired those buildings that will never be experienced again – I would spend my summers in the Valašsko [East Moravian] region countryside with my father, and although I didn’t feel an affinity to folk architecture as such, I did see the fundamental importance of its construction. The key thing was its human scale, which I then applied in my sculpture; I was fascinated by being able to make a sculpture that you could enter into, which gives it an entirely different human dimension. On that subject, I remember well your installation ‘The Twilight of Memory’ shown in 1998 at the Belvedere Pavilion near Prague Castle – it was quite a phenomenon. Were you satisfied with it yourself? I think Belvedere was successful. It demonstrated the limits, in my comprehension, of what can be called art. I don’t like using the term ‘Land Art’; the period of Robert Smithson and those other stars of Land Art during the late 1960s and early ’70s is long gone – I mean land art in the sense of something timeless. The art of landscape is something that, unwittingly, we all cultivate, whether by creating motorways or artificial dykes to regulate water flow – we either do it well or badly. In the present day it’s mostly done badly, I’d say… People are learning from the severe floods of recent years. I think it’s best to invest money in renewing river meanders than in motorways. If there was a chance to have some real ecological thinking in politics, that could make a change for the better. It seems to me that although the Czechs have a Green Party I’ve not really heard them come up with any major environmental policies… You only have to recall what a good chance the Czechs had [after the Velvet Revolution of 1989], given that our country wasn’t as heavily industrialised as, say, England. Now that England has used up its resources and become post-industrial, it’s acquiring the hallmark of a land that’s resting and renewing itself. In this country there was a chance simply to preserve the unspoilt landscape we’d inherited. But now when you see what’s going on around our towns and cities… By which you mean, for example, the wild expansion of those eyesore hangars used for commercial storage that litter the countryside as you approach Prague along the motorway. You’ve got to realise that the area along the Elbe has rich dark soil. It’s fertile land all the way to the town of Kolín that’s being cluttered up by those damned hangars. The fact is that soon the most precious commodity won’t be crude oil; the most important strategic commodity will be food. So what are they going to do then? Spend yet more billions dismantling those hangars? …To literally get back to the earth again! Of course. And that’s land art as well. You’ve only got to realise how many total non- specialists are currently running around all over the place and influencing the ‘artistic’ attitude to the landscape. My grandfather was undoubtedly an artist in how he correctly managed the countryside. What exactly was he? He was an estate owner. Twelve Apostles, 1998, wood, average diameter 120 cm, part of the Twilight of Memory site-specific installation at the Belvedere Pavilion, Prague

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67 The Cloning, 2003 wood, average diameter 120 cm, Techocentre, Prague

68 So he knew how to maintain the landscape in a balanced and sustainable way. In those days they maintained it using their own hands. I remember when they cut wheat. It was almost like a small festival to hear the rhythm of six men scything wheat in unison. That’s a sound I’ll never forget – it was something sacred. Although mechanisation was beginning at that time, there were still hedges and wonderful paths through the fields where you could pick wild camomile. I don’t want to come across like some grouchy conservative, but all that could have been maintained without making it impossible to use combine harvesters. Something is given overriding priority – animals are mass-reared and aren’t given individual names anymore. Of course now there are attempts to restore traditional approaches. It always strikes me how rarely you see sheep and cows in the landscape here, even in the summer. Unfortunately it’s to do with the demise of the small-scale farmer here. Everything’s done large-scale, which in turn leads to food surpluses. I don’t remember a food surplus when things were done in a healthy way, when farmers had their fifteen hectares of land. I don’t want to stick my nose in the economic side of it, but there are countries such as Austria and Switzerland where they have to subsidise the country to enable it to remain decorative. Whenever I look out of an aeroplane and see the Swiss landscape I say to myself that it’s Art Nouveau perfection to the point of kitsch! That’s the kind of obsessive land management that makes the countryside seem almost artificial. Returning to your teaching activity – having left the Prague Academy of Arts, Architecture and Design you’re now teaching at the art department of the West Bohemian University in Plzeň. What fresh experience has this brought for you? For me, the main thing is that it’s a completely different challenge. From the outset it’s based on a different conception, which brings me back to Makovský. In what sense? That there are greater challenges; we don’t have as much money as the traditional art colleges, but in Plzeň there are more potential sponsors than in Prague and it seems more dynamic. One of our main responsibilities is to find sponsors and collaborators, and one such willing collaborator is the excellent department of applied science. They made us an offer to cooperate with them, and they’ve helped us with technical problems our art students encounter in making their work. We’re talking about mechanics, electricians and specialists in other disciplines that are nowadays connected with art. Who promotes this kind of dialogue between faculties? It’s supported by the university administration itself, which promotes permeability between departments. Is there a difference between how you teach now and how you taught in Prague? For illustration: I gave my first-year students in Plzeň a group task. There were fourteen of them and they all got given an axe and had to do one segment of a joint work. It was winter, so they had to get gloves. The work, when it’s finished, will have an overall composition and meaning. This shows the difference – together they realised very quickly what it’s all about. In Prague, on the contrary, I had time to ponder over each individual student for four years and determine his or her particular inclination – whether towards the figure or towards conceptualism. One thing I didn’t agree about with my fellow lecturers in Prague was that students had to be original and keep up with the latest trends at all costs. For me, the uniqueness of a person is much more important than seasonal novelties in art. What demands does your teaching make of you? How do you balance your life as a professor with that as an artist? To this I’d have to reply that, since I began teaching, my office hours have run non- stop. My sculpture work is quite mechanical, and while doing that kind of work I think about everything. That’s the freedom of creating art – even when you’re reflecting on questions of sculpted form, the whole world is running through your head. It’s not relaxation, but when I’m carving something, I’m continually thinking about how to make particular students manifest themselves best; I think of how to encourage them, not how to get them thrown out of school. What about selecting your future students from long lists of candidates – have you always chosen the right people? I have to confess that I have made a couple of mistakes in terms of who I’ve admitted to my studio. But even in those cases, when it turned out I hadn’t accepted the most The Burden of the Cross, 2004 wood, average diameter 480 cm, height 350 cm, Techocentre, Slovakia

What do I have to tell anyone when all the work I’ve ever produced has been a surprise to me …? 69 brilliant students, they’ve gone on to find their own place – for example when they develop into skilful managerial types who are willing help out more gifted fellow students who aren’t good at communicating. I’ve long since got rid of that blinkered professorial view based on a student’s momentary merit, because you’re often surprised by how an unremarkable student suddenly has a spurt of development. It especially happens among male students. I have to say that for this reason I often prefer taking artistically ‘untouched’ students to those who are highly trained in art – it’s important to observe if they’re a real person, not if it’s some young maestro able to brilliantly sketch a female nude. There were some cases that proved me right in my judgement – students from secondary schools with a broad academic spectrum, who weren’t technically skilled at art, but who had human potential and were willing to work really hard and catch up with the others. When you see students who know something about physics and maths, they express themselves differently and more intelligently. With them it works differently to those who haven’t been focused on anything else than art since secondary school, who are looking for artistic models and searching out the latest trends. Did you ever consider teaching in your earlier life? Did you imagine that one day you might be a university professor? I never even dreamed of it. In the period leading up to the revolution of 1989, Josef Hlaváček [art historian and theoretician, Rector of the Prague Academy of Arts, Architecture and Design 1994-2000] came to the forefront as someone with bold ideas that had something to say to my generation. After the revolution, new teams of lecturers were formed at universities and students had a big say in post-revolutionary decision- making. To my surprise a student delegation from AAAD appeared at my garden gate one day asking me to go and teach there. Hlaváček also got in touch with me with the same request. That was my first contact with the teaching profession, which I’d previously had no experience of. I kept thinking to myself: ‘What do I have to tell anyone when all the work I’ve ever produced has been a surprise to me and not been at all connected with what I want to communicate to people?’ I didn’t even want to communicate anything – it was meant to be a mystery, if anything. Then I found I had something to say. In the first and second years I didn’t have to speak about anything else than the human head, ancient Greece and Rome, and about the potential to achieve symbolic crossovers in one’s art. I taught students how to transform the portrait into a disharmonic but truthful form. I then found out that people liked attending my classes. Then, when Hlaváček became Rector and the Academy began accrediting new studios and subjects, he managed to renew an older tradition of having two sculpture studios there – alongside Kurt Gebauer’s, which had been in existence for a couple of years, mine was set up too. Soon afterwards a new space in the industrial Karlín district of Prague became available to house a studio, but none of the other professors wanted to leave the historical main building of AAAD because they were afraid that the new spaces didn’t have genius loci or a view of Prague Castle. I chose to go there, and the location proved ideal for my studio. The revolution had finished, factories were closing down – my students went out there and came back with chunks of iron. It wasn’t theft – you could just go out, shovel it up, and no one cared. We began on a grand scale, focusing on materials and how to put it all together. We soon started applying for grants, and in the second year we were awarded one, enabling us to get equipment we needed such as chainsaws. And it all developed from there… I won’t hide the mystery of communication with students – I don’t believe in getting too familiar with them, but it’s true that you often find out more from them over a beer. In that situation one says more than one means too, especially the students, and then you know what they really think – and if it’s bad! (Laughs) You mentioned grants. It seems that applying for them is now a profession in itself, especially in the case of European grants. I can’t imagine you finding much common ground with their special terminology. I have to say first of all that I don’t agree with the notion promoted by the European establishment that art should pay its own way. The column in the grant form that riles me most is: ‘What is the applicability of your graduates?’ To that I reply: ‘I’ve not yet heard of any of my graduates dying of hunger.’ (Laughs) They do restoration work, they make sculptures – in short they apply themselves in society. They leave school quite young and have no intention of giving it all up. I send off a grant application to the Ministry of Education and they say: ‘That’s not a proper answer.’ They return the column and I say: ‘What’s supposed to be the answer to that question? You tell me!’ They then ask if my students are active in their field, if they’re making sculpture. I reply: ‘Yes they are. What do you want me to do? I don’t monitor their subsequent lives.’ I know that, for example, someone’s doing restoring, they’ve got two children but they manage to make ends meet. It’s not my concern, to be honest. The problem seems to be that there is an increasing demand for everything to be more measurable, more calculable and quantifiable – artificially so. Which, in culture, is a questionable approach. The day before yesterday I had a get-together with my former students here in my garden. Several came with their kids in prams. All of them were so happy it moved me to tears. They were reconciled with the fact that, as graduates in sculpture, their lives won’t be easy. But they’re willing to battle it out. I know that politicians see them as surplus to requirements, but they do have a role to play in how they spiritually enhance society. These graduates look at the world in a completely different way to the idiot who’s ripping off the bank, paying a mortgage on his villa and ranting about leaves from other people’s trees flying on to his pathway… Monument to Trees, 2001 granite, wood – oak, 540 x 820 x 440 cm (TECHO building on the right)

70 The World of Botanicus is The World of Plants Arboretum of Dagmar and Václav Havel The best moment to plant a tree was twenty years ago. The second best moment is now. – Chinese proverb. www.botanicus.cz „When my wife Dagmar brought the first tree - taxus marci - from Taiwan in 1998 (by the way, its needles are used in the treatment of cancer), it became the first collection item in the newly established botanical gardens which she dreamed about and finally located in the Lány Castle. In the course of time, she approached not less than fifty prominent people: Hillary Clinton, the Jordanian queen Naar, Tomáš Baťa and others, and in the following six years, new trees were added to her collection. Even the actual planting of the donated trees was done by famous cultural and political figures. After the end of my presidency, it seemed right that this collection would be looked after with real loving care. Therefore, it was entrusted to the world renowned company Botanicus from Ostrá near Lysá nad Labem and the alley has thus become an integral part of their gardens. I believe that the Arboretum will be a place of beauty, peace and meditation enjoyed by many generations of visitors.“ Václav Havel „It has given me great pleasure to witness the world-wide resurgence of interest in the role of Botanic Gardens in recent years. Paradoxically, I suspect this might be the result of increasing awareness in society of loss of potentially important botanical resources through the direct and indirect activities of Mankind. It is therefore very encouraging to see the proposals for the Dagmar and Václav Havel Arboretum, to be sited within the organic Horticular complex of the Botanicus organization in Bohemia. When I visited the garden complex some years ago, I was struck by the contribution it was making not only to local rural regeneration, education, and to awareness of sustainable horticulture and other major botanical issues within the Czech Republic, but also by the strong positive influence it success was having on like-minded groups through Central and Eastern Europe. I am confident that it will continue to exert considerable influence far beyond its Bohemian origins. Charles, The Prince of Wales

Green shoots As part of our carbon footprint offset programme, TECHO in the Czech Republic recently organised and funded the planting of 1000 trees south of Prague in the aptly named Green Valley.

72 Art is an exchange of opinions and information from the surrounding world. We are two, each independent and yet together. I am an organic part of society moving in time and space, and you represent the artistic process and creation, you are an artefact. We each carry different information, but I know that you understand me. “ ARTWORKBYMONIKAHAVLÍČKOVÁCOURTESYOFGAMBITGALLERY/PHOTOTAKENBYIVETAKOPICOVAATDOX

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74 Focus fFocus is a winner in every sense. A remarkable record in the most prestigious design competitions and a fantastic product that allows nothing to compromise its unique brand of ergonomic functionality. It was designed over 8 years ago by the renowned Prague based architectural studio, ADR. It is still an extremely popular desking system and has been delivered to all corners of the globe where it can be found furnishing small start-up companies or the offices of world’s richest people. Its no-nonsense functionality has given this desk a style that transcends design fashions. It was awarded the prestigious red dot design award in 2003 and the Czech Design Center Award in 2002. What makes Focus special? Space saving and convenient storage. Files and folders to hand – no need to leave your seat. Clever CPU stowage and integrated cable management. Features that make Focus the practical choice. 1 2 43 Design: ADR Ales Lapka, Petr Kolar Focus is the ultimate reflection of our form subordinate to function philosophy

75 Focus 1 Focus 2 Reactive Focus 3 Focus is a product that perfectly embodies the TECHO philosophy – when designing furniture 95% of the attention should be paid to function and just 5% to design aesthetics. If you take care of the function, the ‘aesthetics’ will take care of themselves. The result is a desk that compliments rather than dominates the office. The dominant position is given to the user and the working environment. Focus 1 Focus 2 Focus 3 Reactive Certificates EN 527-2 ISO 9001 ISO 14001 OHSAS 18001 CFCS 1004 FSC STD 40-004 Furniture Industry Sustainability Programme - Full Member worksurfacefinishesframefinishes R 5330 beech W400 white R 5413 wild pear U 1188 grey RAL9007 gunmetal RAL9010 white RAL9004 black RAL9022 silver

Queen Margaret University E D I N B U R G H Client: Queen Margaret University, Edinburgh, United Kingdom Dealer: Alpha Location: Edinburgh, United Kingdom Size: 2500 workstations, 4500 storage units, teaching tables and café furniture Product: Platform, Element Architect: Dyer Associates 76

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Building my own plane was a life-long dream which I slowly but surely carried to fruition over endless hours of precise work. It consists of thousands of parts and I have every detail in my head. When I strap myself into the seat, check the instruments and controls, I have a heightened feeling of expectation. During takeoff my heart rate increases and after landing on the runway I have a great sense of satisfaction. The sound of a perfectly tuned motor is music to my ears. As we spend most of our lives on the ground, those precious moments spent up in the air are unforgettable. “ “ 81

Plat form 1 3 2 Design: Craig Jones Design is about searching for excellence – fulfilling the client’s brief, but also looking beyond the bare specification to incorporate feelings as well as perhaps things that the client didn’t realise he needed. This synthesis of design brief and designer inspiration can result in something special that stands apart from other products. Such products stand the test of time and become classics. The Platform open desk system allows the creation of flexible workstations. The system is suitable for various types of workplace such as - Hot Desk, Call Centre, Team Office. Platform encourages communication and interaction between workers – it promotes teamwork. It can also be divided using screens to create closed workstations for a variable number of workers. These screens are not fixed and can easily be moved to alter the size and number of workstations. The micro-architecture of these workstations is complimented by a range of office accessories, monitor arms, CPU holders etc. It has a clever central cabling system for both power and data (connecting PC, laptops, telephones etc.). 4 82

83 Certificates EN 527-2 ISO 9001 ISO 14001 OHSAS 18001 CFCS 1004 FSC STD 40-004 Furniture Industry Sustainability Programme - Full Member It is said that the bench style workstation has its origins in the offices of British architect Sir Norman Foster at the end of the 1990s. He used to move around the office sitting next to different members of his design team and decided that this kind of teamwork would be much more effective on a single “never-ending” desk. 5 worksurfacefinishesframefinishes R 5330 beech W400 white R 5413 wild pear U 1188 grey RAL9007 gunmetal RAL9010 white RAL9004 black RAL9022 silver

Client: University of J. Selye, Komarno, Slovak Republic Location: Komarno, Slovak Republic Product: the library, auditorium for 350 people, 3x lecture theatres (150 seats) and technical rooms (120 seats), computer rooms Architect: Jakab Design Studio, architect Rusko 84

J. Selye University KOMÁRNO 85

86 Whatever a person does, he should do it with pride and dedication. At first sight it is not evident that I am an insurance agent. A couple of years ago I acquired two sheep for my garden, but I could not find anyone to shear them. I therefore taught myself to do it, and I now offer this service to others. It is better than going to a fitness centre – sheep shearing is incredibly hard work. When I’m holding a ram, the phone must wait. “

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88 Citis Certificates EN 527-2 ISO 9001 ISO 14001 OHSAS 18001 CFCS 1004 FSC STD 40-004 Furniture Industry Sustainability Programme - Full Member Citis – Mobility is now one of the key principles for the modern office – both for individuals and furniture layouts. Offices in the past were static and stable – that was the mind set then. Now offices are dynamic – a reflection of modern work patterns. Office layouts change regularly, dependent on headcount or the progress of given projects. Citis has been designed to meet the needs of such offices. Another winning product from the Hans Verboom drawing board. 1) The table must always be assembled by two people. 2) Unlock the central lock of the fixing device (if fitted) that attaches the table top to the framework of the table. 3) Move fixing device on one leg toward the centre of the table (approx. 200 mm). 4) Open the arm of the leg by 45 degrees from the central axis of the table. 5) Tilt the table top into a horizontal position. 6) Move fixing device on the second leg toward the centre of the table (approx. 200 mm). 7) Open the arm of the second leg by 45 degrees from the central axis of the table. 8) Fix the legs to the table top. 1 2 3 4 worksurfacefinishesframefinishes R 5330 beech W400 white R 5413 wild pear U 1188 grey RAL9007 gunmetal RAL9010 white RAL9004 black RAL9022 silver

89 800 1200 1600 800 1600 1600 1600 1600 1600 Citis SNThe CITIS SN represents the next generation of mobile furniture. It is not foldable – saving material and costs – but is very easy to assemble and disassemble. There are no compromises – just perfect functionality combined with the unique TECHO customer service and unbeatable value. Citis SN retains the Citis look and leg-integrated cable riser. The cables can be led up any of the 4 legs. The cover simply unclips and clips back on again. We are so confident about its assembly/dismantling performance that we provide an industry beating warranty of 50 assembly/disassembly operations. This durability has been confirmed by extensive tests at independent test and certification facilities. Design: Hans Verboom Always on the move, never satisfied with the office layout? This desk will cater to your every whim. 1 2 3 4 5

90 Education provides for fertile ground in which the aspirations of individuals and society take root. As in business, education should be about challenging existing assumptions and finding new and innovative ways to approach old problems. TECHO has helped to change the landscape of many prestigious universities and educational institutions.

91 Open Gate Babice Client: Open Gate Babice, Czech Republic Location: Babice, Czech Republic Size: 68 student living rooms, 29 kitchenettes, library, changing rooms Product: Esprit, wooden cabinets, pedestals, Elements, Focus, low seating, non-standard furniture Architect: ADR

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Originally I wanted to paint out in the open in a beautiful national park region of Bohemia. In order to get to where I wanted to work I needed to go by car and park somewhere off the beaten track, so that I could take my easel and painting materials. Unfortunately I was unable to obtain a permit to drive off the marked roads. I therefore went by train and explored the region on foot. It was a great trip and I am now painting from memory. “ “ 94

RAL9010 white 95 Alva collection Mirror Table AdvertA3 Leaflettrio Coatstand AdvertA4 Leafletsingle RAL9004 black RAL9007 gunmetal RAL9022 silver Design: Jiri Pelcl "It is exciting to design objects and work with space. It involves the search for optimal shapes, materials, and technologies in relation to function." Certificates ISO 9001 ISO 14001 OHSAS 18001 CFCS 1004 FSC STD 40-004 Furniture Industry Sustainability Programme - Full Member

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97 NEW PORG Client: PORG, Czech Republic Location: Prague, Czech Republic Product: Esprit, wooden cabinets, chairs, school furniture Ahrend, non-standard furniture Architect: Cappa Development

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Order too few of these chairs and those without will feel decidedly insecure (and probably less comfortable)! 100

ergonomic elegance Barry Foley, Managing Director of TECHO UK, was the driving force behind the addition of this chair to our product range. He describes Sidiz as “our very clever new chair which uses state-of-the-art materials and innovative design to deliver enhanced support, comfort, versatility and value to the office or boardroom“. At TECHO we have seen lots of chairs over the years and are not easily convinced by words alone. However, after he told us the price we sat down and were completely won over. TECHO is convinced that this is an industry beating product. Come and try it yourself – we are confident that you too will be impressed by the combination of price, comfort and function offered by this exceptional chair. 553B red 544B blue 556B grey 557B green 558B yelow As standard the chair is supplied with a black seat cover and without headrest or lumbar support. The seat cover can easily be removed and is available in a range of five colours. The foam armrests can be adjusted for both height and distance to seat front. The synchronous mechanism enables adjustment of seat height and tilt as well as backrest recline and tension. Sidiz Certificates EN 1335-2 ISO 9001 ISO 14001 OHSAS 18001 CFCS 1004 FSC STD 40-004 Furniture Industry Sustainability Programme - Full Member 101 580 – 640 970–1050 400–475210 670 580 – 640 1160–1240 970–1050 400–475210 670

102 Client: NTK, Prague, Czech Republic Location: Prague, Czech Republic Size: 6000m2 Product: Esprit, Horizont, seating and non-standard furniture Architect: Mgr. akad. arch. Roman Brychta, studio Projektil and Hippie design architektura 102

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107107 It is amazing how many titles for obligatory and voluntary education in the area of the arts can be found on the Internet and from publishers and bookshops. On music, painting, sculpture, but almost nothing on contemporary Czech architecture and design. These are areas that influence us from childhood and we are exposed to them every day. This is one of the main reasons why from 1999 the non-profit organisation Prostor - architecture, interior, design has been active in trying to fill this gap in the form of education outside school. The company publishes popularly conceived non-commercial titles that attempt to systematically document the development of Czech architecture and design since 1990. As an accompanying programme to publishing, also organises exhibitions and lectures for the general public, with particular emphasis on the younger generation. These events attempt to use specific examples to show the role of architecture and design in people’s lives, as well as the position and responsibility of architects and designers and the nature of their relationship with investors and supplier or producer. A major publication that Prostor issues on a regular basis is the Czech Architecture Yearbook which provides readers with an overview of the current and inspirational architectural projects of a wide range of architects. Worth mentioning are, for example, cooperation in preparing the retrospective exhibition of the work of Eva Jiricna or the exhibitions "Only Buildings" devoted to Czech architecture since 1990 and "Our Daily Companion", devoted to Czech design over the same period. Also interesting was the project "Office Place for Living" – exhibition and lecture by renowned British designer Francis Duffy. Other exhibitions also were enlivened with lectures and guided tours. Prostor also cooperated with the preparation of several documentary films for Czech Television. The systematic educational work of the foundation and promotion of Czech Architecture and design has been recognised several times, for example by awards from the Ministry of Culture and the Czech Design Centre. Non-commercial projects cannot be realised without enlightened partners who financially support the publication of books and the organisation of exhibitions and lectures. In this context it is appropriate to mention TECHO, which has provided Prostor with long- term support. DAGMAR VERNEROVA Prostor – architecture, interior, design 1/ The latest yearbook 2/ Poster and catalogue for the exhibition “Our Daily Companion” 3/ Catalogue for the exhibition “Office Place for Living” 4/ Poster for the exhibition “Only Buildings” 1/ 2/ 3/ 4/ Non-profitorganisationProstor–supportingeducation Prostor - architecture - interior - design

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109 Queen Mary U N I V E R S I T Y O F L O N D O N Client: Queen Mary University, London, United Kingdom Location: Whitechapel, London, United Kingdom Size: 400 workstations and seats Product: Horizont, Focus Architect: Will Alsop

110 Students best remember things that they have physically tried themselves and things that also bring them inspiration. They need to look at things and touch them in a spirit of playfulness, for example when adjusting the seating position of office chairs or lounging around on the easy chairs whilst taking in the atmosphere of TECHOCENTRE and its works of art, effective artificial lighting and different zones. Knowledge gained in this way is easily applicable within the teaching process, in particular if combined with emotions that have been collectively experienced. During the TECHO- CENTRE visit these experiences were reinforced with a commentary from experts in the field of office interiors Jan Hampl and Pavel Luzek. The visits to TECHOCENTRE have been so popular with students that they have been a regular fixture for several years now. The presentation of furniture products as workstation systems for various office functions highlights the variability of the design. Attention to detail and ergonomic comfort is also evident in the furniture designs. The visit gave the students the opportunity to see the way in which companies are now looking at the office environment and how furniture is designed to meet new workplace trends. Note was taken of the workstation configurations, the dimensional variability of furniture and their elements, sober combinations of materials and colours, the use of upholstery and other surface finishes. During the demonstrations the architecture students at the Civil Engineering Faculty in Prague – Dejvice asked questions to clarify their perceptions. The contemporary environmental approach to preserving natural resources and human values can bring us a sensitive symbiosis of simple and original materials including products processed using environmentally friendly production technology that will not have a lasting environmental impact. Students visit the TECHOCENTRE in Prague 110

111 DESIGNSLOVAKIANGOBratislava/Slovakia information/inspiration/innovationincorporatearchitecture&design Design Slovakia is a non-governmental organization documenting and promoting top quality Slovak architecture and design with focus on companies practice. It co-operates with leading companies/producers, organizations, universities and professionals in Slovakia, Czech Republic and other countries in Central Europe Region. Organizing design competitions and co-operating with specialized media Design Slovakia promotes and supports young gifted Slovak authors. Annually in October, Design Slovakia organizes DESIGN DAYS, the Bratislava design festival and DESIGN SALON, a selective exhibition on Slovak and foreign design. Design Slovakia publishes A+D (design!in), a magazine specialized on architecture, interior and design in corporate practice. Among the periodical activities of Design Slovakia belong representative exhibitions on Slovak architecture and design abroad and publishing of specialized books on Slovak architecture and design. Since May 2010 organizes Design Slovakia a new event on contemporary architecture – ARCHDAYS, the Bratislava architecture festival. EXAMPLES OF IMPLEMENTED PROJECTS DESIGN DAYS 2000 – 2008 (Bratislava design festival) DESIGN SALON 2003 – 2008 (selective exhibition on Slovak and foreign design, Bratislava) Design/Slovakia/05 (exhibition on contemporary Slovak product design, Adolf Loos Designzone/Raiffeisenbank, Vienna, 2005) Design/Slovakia/06/ living & lifestyle (exhibition + catalogue on contemporary Slovak design, Vienna, 2006) Design/Exchange/07 (exhibition + catalogue on interior design from Slovakia, Czech Republic, Poland and Hungary, Vienna, 2007) Design/Match/CZE:SVK (exhibition + catalogue on Slovak and Czech design in co-operation with Czechdesign ngo and National Gallery, Prague, 2006) Design Management Europe Award (since 2007 – national expert representing Slovak Republic in the European competition under the auspices of European Commission) INTERIOR.SK.05/07 (representative exhibition on Slovak interior design from years 2005 – 2007, Bratislava, Budapest, Vienna, Berlin, Prague, 2008 – 2009) design!in 2004 – 2009 (magazine specialized on architecture, interior and design in corporate practice) PRIZES The main prize of the MODDOM Fair Bratislava in years 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008 for the selective design exhibition DESIGN SALON EXAMPLES OF PREPARED PROJECTS INTERIOR.SK.05/09 (specialized book on Slovak interior design, author: Ľubica Fábri) ARCHITECTURE.SK.05/09 (exhibition + book on Slovak architecture created in years 2005 – 2009) INTERIOR.SK.08/09 (exhibition on Slovak interior design created in years 2008 – 2009) YAP SK 2010 (Young Architect Prize in Slovakia 2010, first edition of the award for Slovak architecture students and young architects under 35 years age) ARCHDAYS 2010 (Bratislava architecture festival, 17. – 30. 5. 2010) The founder and director of Design Slovakia since 2003 is Ľubica Fábri, Slovak architect graduated at the Univesity Bauhaus in Weimar, internationally recognized theorestist, exhibition curator and marketing manager at the field of architecture and design. www.designin.sk

112 That was the first fish I ever caught. At the age of five it was a real success. It was a catfish and was underweight, so we put it back. My friend Jirka is a really experience fisherman. He showed me how to cast and taught me about floats and reels. Then it started to get dark and my first fishing trip came to an end. “ PHOTOTAKENBYIVETAKOPICOVAATTHEWORLDOFBOTANICUS

113 IQIf you\'ve got it, flaunt it A 2005 Best of NeoCon Gold Award winner, the IQ side chair offers beauty, performance and unprecedented comfort in its class. Design: Niels Diffrient In his career as an industrial designer, which has now lasted over a half century, Diffrient has designed every type of equipment, as well as computers, exhibits, trucks, airplane interiors and corporate identity programs. In the field of furniture design, most notably ergonomic seating, Niels has won a total of 24 awards, including two Best of Show and 10 Gold and Top awards. Diffrient holds more than 46 design and utility patents on furniture designs in America and abroad. International Awards for the IQ chair The Best New Workplace Product 1999, UK Design Journal Award for Design Excellence, 1999, USA Innovations Awards - Citation of Excellence in Product Performance, Germany Design Award Winner 2000-05-16 IIDEX NeoCon Canada, 1999

114 WaveVellum smoke ash black grass light grey ultraviolet beech graphite green wood mahogany black cayenne graphite navy rattan blue dark brown loden poppy sage moss periwinkle seal navy pomegranate A really good furniture design arises only from correct understanding of the people who will use it. Only after we gain an understanding of human behaviour, can we see shapes and forms that we were not able to imagine before. N I E L S D I F F R I E N T Temperature chart of foam seat load Temperature chart of gel seat load low high Levelling of pressure load of foam and gel seat Red places indicate the origination of pressure points during longer sitting on the foam seat. When using a gel seat for a period of 90 min. the pressure load between seat and body of the user is 60% lower than under the same conditions on a foam seat. The gel seat spreads the weight of the user thus decreasing the pressure conditions on the seat. 635 406–541 533 1092–1422 635 406–541 533 851–1048 559 559 432–566 570 470 533 1010 IQ task chair IQ saddle seat Liberty side chair Certificates EN 1335-2 ISO 9001 ISO 14001 OHSAS 18001 CFCS 1004 FSC STD 40-004 Furniture Industry Sustainability Programme - Full Member

The University of Economics Client: The University of Economics, Czech Republic Location: Prague, Czech Republic Size: 250 workstations, 460 seats in auditorium and classrooms Product: Horizont, Esprit, wooden cabinets and pedestals, chairs, screens Architect: Atelier WIK s.r.o. 115

In April 2007 the Canadian government announced that by 2012 it planned to ban incandescent light bulbs, and in doing so contribute to a large reduction in carbon dioxide emissions. A breakthrough in this direction came in May 2007 when Australia approved a ban on the sale of incandescent light bulbs, which came into effect in 2009. The first country in which the use of such bulbs has actually been banned is Cuba, with effect from 2007. “ “ 116 PHOTOBYIVETAKOPICOVA

117 Esprit Certificates EN 527-2 ISO 9001 ISO 14001 OHSAS 18001 CFCS 1004 FSC STD 40-004 Furniture Industry Sustainability Programme - Full Member Esprit is the type of desk you can take anywhere. Never out of place – like your favourite pair of jeans. Always fashionable, it is not just a simple table but rather a design statement. Underplayed elegance, TECHO quality and functionality; Esprit is simply a classic. Design: TECHO Another thing that makes Esprit and all our products special is the fact that when you buy a TECHO product, you also benefit from the TECHO service – customer service is not just a phrase for us, it’s what TECHO has built its reputation on. 1 worksurfacefinishesframefinishes R 5330 beech W400 white R 5413 wild pear U 1188 grey RAL9007 gunmetal RAL9010 white RAL9004 black RAL9022 silver 2 3

118 A T R I U M University of Glamorgan Client: ATRIUM, University of Glamorgan, South Wales, United Kingdom Furniture Supply: Momentum Location: Cardiff, South Wales, United Kingdom Product: Platform, Esprit, Citis Lite Architect: Holder Mathias 118

119 This chair offers a great combination of price and comfort, and is designed to have a very low-profile presence in the office. Despite being our entry level chair, it comes with a chrome base and offers extreme durability – tested and in compliance with all applicable EU standards. Seating is the only item of office furniture that is in constant contact with the human body. Scio is our entry level chair, but once again our no-compromise attitude to our products is evident. TECHO is committed to providing ergonomic seating across its range of chairs. The Scio chair features a synchronous mechanism – which protects the spine – and height- adjustable armrests for maximum comfort. Over 35% of work-related injuries result from poor seating. People are the most important resource of any company and if you provide them with comfortable and ergonomic seating, they will thank you for it. TW-32 black TW-33 grey TW-31 blue TW-34 red 15-33 black Scio – comfort as standard Certificates EN 1335-2 ISO 9001 ISO 14001 OHSAS 18001 CFCS 1004 FSC STD 40-004 Furniture Industry Sustainability Programme - Full Member 460–570 1030–1140 660 500 460 450 500 545 830 460

Sto rage sys tems 120

121 Simple and effective, they almost seem bigger inside than out Our storage systems have been designed with functionality in mind rather than style. We have found that if you concentrate on functionality, the design style looks after itself. We wanted to get every possible cm3 of storage space from these products – and that’s what we have achieved. The internals are not as complex as those offered by many companies, but a lot of storage products actually lose space to unnecessary complexity. Our shelves have integrated file hangers for maximum flexibility. Whether you will be storing folders, files, CDs or books, TECHO storage systems maximise loading space. Our cabinets come as a functional unit with internal fittings, whereas many of our competitors have a policy of selling cheap cabinets but then offering expensive internals to go with them.

Planting fruit trees is wonderfully relaxing. You must, however, know the right way to do it. Apples, pears etc. and walnuts should be planted in the autumn whilst fruit with stones are best planted in the spring. The size of the hole, fertiliser, watering… it is all a science. In my garden I planted an alley of different tree varieties. Every year I gather several crates of fruit and I am properly proud of myself. “ “ 122 PHOTOTAKENBYIVETAKOPICOVAATTHEWORLDOFBOTANICUS

Wooden mobile pedestals Wooden desk-high pedestals 123 R 5330 beech W400 white R 5413 wild pear U 1188 grey RAL9007 gunmetal RAL9004 black RAL9022 silver Certificates EN 14073-2 ISO 9001 ISO 14001 OHSAS 18001 CFCS 1004 FSC STD 40-004 Furniture Industry Sustainability Programme - Full Member Steel mobile pedestals Steel desk-high pedestals Steel mobile pedestals Wooden mobile pedestals Wooden desk-high pedestals Pede stals RAL9010 white

Working in marketing is very stressful. I race around the city from meeting to meeting, dealing with one phone call after another, but most ideas are born in our courtyard. We have six rabbits, three cats and a mule, and in their company I come up with the best solutions. “ “ 124 PHOTOTAKENBYIVETAKOPICOVAATTHEWORLDOFBOTANICUS

125 RAL9007 gunmetal RAL9004 black RAL9022 silver Certificates EN 14073-2 ISO 9001 ISO 14001 OHSAS 18001 CFCS 1004 FSC STD 40-004 Furniture Industry Sustainability Programme - Full Member flipper door pull-out drawer pull-out filing frame open front ElementTECHO has designed and produces an innovative modular storage solution called Element. Element is stackable and has been designed to complement TECHO’s desking systems. The modules can be stacked into storage walls over 2 metres high. Flipper doors enable convenient access to the storage space whilst modules are also available with pull-out frame and as an open cabinet. RAL9010 white

Strolling through the wood I suddenly find myself putting broken branches and roots into my basket instead of mushrooms. Without moving I stare in fascination at an oak root, captivated by its form, and I consider how to transport this huge piece of root reminiscent of a cubist construction to my studio. A freshly cleared glade provides a vast quantity of wood raw material. The smell of the saw attracts me, and every off cut speaks to me in someway – deciding for itself what the end form will be. I discovered that I am a sculptor through nature. Nature has become my main theme, fascinating, inspirational – a driving force. “ 126

127 A R T W O R K S B Y J A K U B F L E J S A R / P H O T O T A K E N B Y I V E T A K O P I C O V A I N J A K U B F L E J S A R \' S G A R D E N

128 Steel tambour cabinets Wooden tambour cabinets Cabinets Pull-out frame Fixed shelf Shelf with coat rail

129 Wooden cabinets with wing doors Wooden cabinets with sliding doors The TECHO cabinets were designed in-house as a practical and convenient storage system that complements our desking ranges. During the design process particular attention was paid to the doors to ensure that access to the storage space is maximized. In the tambour versions the doors are stored at the back of the cabinet when open so that very little space is wasted. Which ever model you choose, you are sure to appreciate the no-nonsense design, vast storage potential and high build quality of the TECHO cabinet range. Certificates EN 14073-2 ISO 9001 ISO 14001 OHSAS 18001 CFCS 1004 FSC STD 40-004 Furniture Industry Sustainability Programme - Full Member R 5330 beech W400 white R 5413 wild pear U 1188 grey RAL9007 gunmetal RAL9004 black RAL9022 silver RAL9010 white

130 Composition of household rubbish 22% paper 13% plastics 9% glass 3% hazardous waste 18% bio-waste 35% remainder Each of us throws away around 150 to 200 kg of rubbish each year. If, however, you sort your rubbish and put it in the recycling bins, over one third of this amount can be recycled. In a year you can deposit in the recycling bins up to 30 kg of paper, 25 kg of plastic and 15 kg of glass. “ “

131 Novum The Novum range has been designed to complement the TECHO desking systems, providing elegant storage in keeping with the functional TECHO style. Novum accessories can be hung from TECHO screens, thus freeing up valuable desk space. Don’t let your stationery and paperwork take over your desk – fight back with Novum office accessories. The Novum accessory range – bringing order to your workstations. RAL9007 gunmetal RAL9010 white RAL9004 black RAL9022 silver

132 Screen systems are designed to enhance the office environment. In a large open office they can be used to provide a certain degree of privacy and aid work concentration whilst also facilitating teamwork. By attaching NOVUM storage accessories to the screens, the work area can be better organised. The use of screens improves the acoustic conditions of the workplace. TECHO screens are stable and provide a wide range of options for use.

24,6 18 51,4 8 2020 133 TECHO has made a further important contribution to creating a comfortable and productive working environment with its latest product range – sound absorbing screens. They help to reduce the transmission of sound from one workstation to another, and thus limit unwanted distractions. These screens have been designed using advanced acoustic material from BASF - Basotect®. The high sound absorption capacity and fire safety of Basotect® make it ideal for use in furniture applications to provide a high degree of acoustic comfort. Screen System Certificates ISO 10534-2 Acoustics EN 1023-2 ISO 9001 ISO 14001 OHSAS 18001 CFCS 1004 FSC STD 40-004 Furniture Industry Sustainability Programme - Full Member 085 – Reef 093 – Aruba 088 – Solano 094 – Slip 097 – Bluebell 004 – Martinique 005 – Curacao 027 – Jamaica 096 – Apple 087 – Lobster 106 – Calypso 009 – Havana 038 – Tequila WOTplexiglassscreens frosted orange brown plexiglass screen ZH screen acoustic screen MDF core Basotect® Fabric MDF Fabric

134 Techo www.techo.cz www.techo.ro

135 Showrooms www.techo.sk www.techo-uk.co.uk

136 www.techo.hu www.techo.ge Showrooms

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Living up to the highest standards www.techo.com Austria TECHO, GmbH Simmeringerhauptstr. 24 1110 Viena, Austria Phone: +43-1-740-40-5215-6 E-mail: info@techo.at www.techo.at China 省 南 105 E Room 7E, Hongwei Mansion, No.105, Guangfo Rd., Huangqi, Nanhai District, Foshan City, Guangdong, China Croatia TECHO Adria, doo Budmanijeva 5 10000 Zagreb, Croatia Phone: +385-997-004-950 E-mail: segan@techo.hr www.techo.com Czech Republic TECHO, a.s. U Továren 770/1b 102 00 Prague 10, Czech Republic Phone: +420-267-290-111 E-mail: info@techo.cz www.techo.cz TECHO, a.s. Gregorova 3/2582 702 00 Ostrava, Czech Republic Phone: +420-733-100-575 E-mail: strzinek@techo.cz www.techo.cz Georgia saqarTvelo S.p.s. texo jorjia limited faliaSvilis 92 0162 Tbilisi, saqarTvelo tel: +995-97-78-30-78 +995-32-22-30-78 +995-32-22-30-87 el. fosta: georgia@techo.com www.techo.ge TECHO Georgia Ltd. ul. Paliashvili 92 0162 Tbilisi, Georgia Phone: +995-97-78-30-78 +995-32-22-30-78 +995-32-22-30-87 E-mail: georgia@techo.com www.techo.ge Hungary TECHO Hungária Kft. Baross u. 12 H – 1047 Budapest, Hungary Phone: +36-1-239-36-08 E-mail: rohaly@techo.hu www.techo.hu Middle East TECHO Middle East 17 A 1st Floor Zomorrodah Building Near Karama GPO Dubai Phone: +971-50-252-8660 E-mail: liam@techo-uk.co.uk www.techo.com Romania TECHO Romania s.r.l. street Spl. Independentei nr 319, sector 6, business center Sema Parc, City Building, ground floor Bucharest, Romania Phone: +40-213-168-112 E-mail: techo@techo.ro www.techo.ro TECHO Romania s.r.l. Cluj Calea Turzii street, no. 199, biroul 3 (office no.3), Cluj-Napoca, Cluj county, Romania Phone: +40-731–560-563 +40-364-881-902 E-mail: techo@techo.ro smihai@techo.ro www.techo.ro Russia Коомпания ТЭХО Електрозаводская, 23/8 107 023, Москва Россия Тел.: +7-495-963-67-35 Е-майл: info@techo.ru www.techo.ru Koompanija TECHO Russia Elektrozavodskaja, Bld. 23/8 107 023, Moscow, Russia Phone: +7-495-963-67-35 E-mail: info@techo.ru www.techo.ru Serbia Pinoles, doo Južni Bulevar 2 Belgrade, Serbia Phone: +381-648-601-900 E-mail: aca@pinoles.com www.techo.com Slovakia TECHO s.r.o. Továrenská 14 811 09 Bratislava, Slovakia Phone: +421-2-57-88-07-88 E-mail: techocentrum@techo.sk www.techo.sk Ukraine ООО "TECHO Україна" вул. Академіка Туполєва 19, офіс 312 Україна, 04128, м. Київ, Phone: +38-(044)-581-14-72 GSM: +38-(067)-635-15-59 E-mail: office@techo.com.ua www.techo.com TECHO Ukraine Ltd. Academician Tupoleva 19, office 312 04128, Kiev, Ukraine, Phone: +38 (044) 581-14-72 GSM: +38 (067) 635-15-59 E-mail: office@techo.com.ua www.techo.com United Kingdom TECHO UK Ltd. The Corner (of Clerkenwell and Farringdon Road) 91–93 Farringdon Road London EC1M 3LN, United Kingdom Phone: +44-207-430-2-882 E-mail: sales@techo-uk.co.uk www.techo-uk.co.uk USA TECHO 240 East 79th Street, Suite # 11C New York, NY 10021, U.S.A. Phone: +1-(917)-750-3337 E-mail: jb@jbalaz.com www.techo.com It goes without saying that all our products have been tested and approved in accordance with EU and UK standards and that the company has ISO 9001 and 14001 certification. In addition TECHO is a full member of FISP (Furniture Industry Sustainability Programme) and C-o-C (Chain of Custody programme) administered by the PEFC Council.