Archis SEE Network - Report 2009

An initiative of Archis Interventions www.seenetwork.org

In cooperation with local initiatives launched by architects, planners, artists, urbanists, sociologists and other professionals engaged in the process of improving various political and social dimensions of the urban environment, Archis Interventions works to establish stronger networks in South Eastern Europe, which can foster the exchange of knowledge and best practices, integrate issues discussed in international discourse on urbanism, and support local activities throughout the region.

The Prague Spring: End of an Illusion?

International Symposium 11-12 March 2008

The "Prague Spring" 1968 and its violent suppression through Warsaw Pact military in August 1968 are one of the key events not only of Czech and Slovak history, they are a landmark of pan-European history of the second half of the 20th century.

Constructing the Third Way: Architecture in Socialist Yugoslavia

Verein zur Förderung der Fortbewegung

Photo: Paviljon 1, Belgrade Fair, Belgrade, Serbia. Architect: Milorad Macura. Engineer: Milan Krstić

Constructing the Third Way: Architecture in Socialist Yugoslavia is a collection of photographic and textual essays on Yugoslav architecture from the 1950s to the 1980s. It is structured around architectural typologies characteristic for this country's unique brand of socialism, which differed considerably from that in the communist bloc.

Political Leadership. Interpretations from Research and Practice

Every manager wants to have it but only a few are credited with it: leadership. This very topical magic word is used to describe the ability to look at the bigger picture and the readiness to make decisions coupled with the ability to motivate others and the courage to go for new solutions.

Das Dreieck meiner Kindheit. Eine jüdische Vorstadtgemeinde in Wien (The Triangle of my Childhood. A Jewish suburban community in Vienna)

The book that accompanies the exhibition was published by Mandelbaum publishing company and tells stories about the Jewish community »Sechshaus« from its beginnings to its destruction. It connects the historic archive research with the voices of numerous witnesses of that time. In addition to the personal memories of the witnesses, it documents the history of the Jewish suburban community »Sechshaus« and the events in the NS period.

 

Joint Exhibition of Young Visual Artists Awards Winners

"It is very exciting that the Third Joint Exhibition of the Young Visual Artists Awards (YWAA) is hosted by the Kontekst Gallery and DEZ ORG, Belgrade, Serbia. It is very significant and challenging as well as a tribute to the programme that young artists from nine Central and South Eastern Euroopean countries are exhibiting their prize winning work in Belgrade at this crucial time." Wendy  W. Luers, President, The Foundation for a Civil Society, New York City)

Archis SEE Network - Report 2008

An initiative of Archis Interventions www.seenetwork.org

Archis SEE Network is a network of independent urban initiatives in South Eastern Europe. In cooperation with local initiatives lounched by architects, planners, artists, urbanists, sociologists and other professionals engaged in the process of improving various political and social dimensions of the urban environment, Archis Interventions intends to establish a network in South Eastern Europe and therby to foster the exchange of knowledge and best practices, to integrate the issues discussed in international dicourse on urbanism, and to support local initiatives. It began to establish the network in the Western Balkans in 2008.

 

Misthaufen der Geschichte? Ash Heap of History?

A few years ago I found some old, thrown away soviet propaganda pictures at a rubbish heap. Pictures which I—like every former citizen of the Eastern Bloc—"met" always and everywhere: in school, in boarding school, in official public buildings... Pictures, whose content  never interested me and was never explained to me.

 

Inne miasto, inne życie | Another City, Another Life

If the fall of communism was indeed a revolution, what kinds of organisation of the space of cities does it propose or imply? How has the fabric of the city responded to the promises of post-communism? What role does art play in the new urban configuration? Can art change anything in the life of contemporary cities?

Friedrich Ohmann 1858-1927

Friedrich Ohmann is one of the major European architects, whose main works fall at the time of turn of the XIX to XX century. From the modern point of view Friedrich Ohmann was till his death on 6 April 1927 with his whole life and work, with his ideas (he was among other things the co-founder of Vienna Secession) a European, a "modern" mobile person, who can be an example for us even today.

 

Fotografia în arta contemporană. Tendinţe în România după 1989 | Photography in Contemporary Art. Trends in Romania after 1989

The lack of knowledge about Romanian art, although there are many aspiring and up-coming artists working in this medium still stays more ore less unnoticed in other European countries as well as the remaining world. Photography in Contemporary Arts is a book initiated by Galeria Noua in Bucharest and pictures the development in Romanian photographic art since the end of the communism period. It gives an overview of Romanian photography in this context.

RO-MD/Moldova în douâ scenarii | RO-MD/Moldova in Two Scenarios

What identity could have a collaboration project between two institutions promoting contemporary art practices bearing in mind that the artistic market is almost missing in the first country, while in the second country such market is just emerging? And how could an artistic approach contribute to the discourse regarding the relationships between Romania and the Republic of Moldova?

Public Art Bucharest 2007

Curated by Marius Babias and Sabine Hentzsch, the Spaţiul Public Bukureşti | Public Art Bucharest 2007 project represents a trans-disciplinary discourse on art, architecture, urban development, education, and youth culture, in society and the public sphere. Spaţiul Public Bukureşti | Public Art Bucharest 2007 includes a series of artistic projects, public debates, and media interventions, and it aims at confronting the public with social developments, initiating discussion, and emphasizing the cultural contribution to the development of democracy.

 

6th Berlin Biennale for Contemporary Art. Catalogue & Reader

was draußen wartet - what is waiting out there

How can the relationship between contemporary art and reality be described; what stance does artistic praxis take on the present? Can it make the disparate realities of our present perceivable, and aid the viewer in assuring him/herself of his/her own existence and that of the world, in feeling more present in this world? In the midst of the overwhelming abundance of visual imagery produced incessantly by our media, how can reality even be created, a critical view of its underlying conditions even be attained? The 6th Berlin Biennale for Contemporary Art will offer no conclusive answers; its aim, rather, is to call attention to the questions.

Atrium 1 - 07

Monument to Transformation - Fragment # 3

Monument to Transformation deals with different aspects of Czech-Slovak art history before and the Czech and Slovak art history after 1989. This is the catalogue of an exhibition, that is part of a long-term project and that shows only a topical fragment. An appeal for collaboration on the Table project (Monument to Transformation ? Fragment #3) made public by selected media, set the framework for the intended archaeological survey by the project author Zbynek Baladran.

The New Prishtina

16.08 – 01.09.2007 European Forum Alpbach

This catalogue of an exhibition was presented to an international audience at the European Forum Alpbach conference in 2007. Held by the Dutch-German-Kosovan initiative Archis Interventions together with planners and architects from Kosovo the reason for this exhibition was a workshop in Pristhina in December 2006. The purpose of this workshop was to discuss the results of a research project that investigated the development of building construction in the city after the end of the violent conflict in 1999.

 

documenta 12 magazines 1-3

Documenta 12, with 754.301 visitors one of the most attended exhibitions of contemporary art in the world took place from the 16th of June until the 23rd of September 2007 in Kassel/ Germany. A regional and cultural focus of documenta 12 was on integration cultural magazines from Russia, Poland, Hungary, Croatia, Serbia, Macedonia, Slovenia, Estonia and Romania, into the international network.

 

Eastmodern

Architecture and Design of the 1960s and 1970s in Slovakia

This documentation compiled by photographer Hertha Hurnaus and architects Benjamin Konrad and Maik Novotny analyses buildings from the era of socialist late modernism in Eastern Europe – a style of architecture that marks a whole period of time when planning was obviously the product of a collective vision. Interviews with the most influential Slovakian architects of the time give the photographs a historical and personal context.

 

Austro-Hungarian Regional Press and Urban Culture

This volume focuses on the development of the German-language regional press in urban centres of Central Europe between 1860 and 1910. It collects articles by scientists from seven regions of the Habsburg Empire that are distinguished by their very different cultures and histories. The papers within the volume consider the complex journalistic relationships at work within the provincial capitals of the Crown lands and in the city of Vienna.

Ganz unten (At Rock Bottom)

Die Entdeckung des Elends (Uncovering Misery in Vienna, Berlin, London, Paris, New York)

From the 1830s onwards overpopulation, advancing urbanisation, fear of cholera and social unrest created intense public interest in the dark, hidden zones of metropolises. “Ganz unten” tells the story of the misery experienced in cities such as Vienna, Berlin, London, Paris and New York from 1830 to 1930, as it was seen and described, and as it was communicated by the mass media. These images and reports on slums, homelessness, exploitation and violence have retrospectively proved to be contradictory and ambiguous.

Beograd Gazela

Reiseführer in eine Elendssiedling (Tour guide to a slum)

Although there are many slums across Europe, few think to ask how they came to be and how their inhabitants live out their daily lives there. One particularly poignant example of a slum is the area of huts and shacks underneath the Gazela motorway bridge in the heart of the Serbian capital Belgrade. This tour guide is dedicated to the depiction of a place that casts light on the recent history of the Romani people in South Eastern Europe with particular vividness. The book provides important basic information on the social and economic structures within the settlement and uncovers the many and various ways in which its inhabitants are marginalised and discriminated against.

Jewish Witness to a Romanian Century

Pictures and stories from the Centropa Interviews

This is the catalogue of an exhibition within the scope of the correspondent Centropa project that focuses memories and old family snapshots to preserve Jewish memory and so brings history to life. Culled from 93 interviews and 1.600 privately-held images in fifteen countries the travelling-exhibition acts as a digital bridge to a world that no longer exists. The result is a far better understanding of what Jewish life was like in Central and Eastern Europe because through these stories, history becomes personal, emotional, compelling.

Die demographische Zukunft von Europa (Europe?s Demographic Future)

Wie sich die Regionen verändern (Growing Imbalances)

Low birth rates, ageing populations and an increasing number of people from other countries and of different religions will bring sustainable change to Europe during the coming decades, and this change is sure to bring about a number of problems with it. This study analyses, contrasts and assesses the demographic and economic development of 285 regions in all 27 EU member states plus Iceland, Norway and Switzerland. The aim of the comparative study is to show what kind of developments are to be expected where, and how these challenges can be tackled.

 

Von Hollar bis Beuys (From Hollar to Beuys)

Sammlung Otto Mauer aus dem Dommuseum in Wien (The Otto Mauer Collection from the Dommuseum in Vienna)

With its exhibition “From Hollar to Beuys”, the art museum of Olomouc opened a long-term series of exhibitions that feature loans from significant European collections and represent an important part of Europe’s cultural tradition. In his collecting activities Monsignore Mauer always focused on supporting post-war art in Austria.

Utopien und Konflikte (Utopias and Conflicts)

Dokumente und Manifeste zur tschechischen Kunst 1938-1989 (Documents and Manifestos on Czech Art 1938-1989)

Utopias and Conflicts is a collection of 40 programmatic and theoretical texts on Czech art in the post-war period. This chronology of Czech visual arts is an excerpt from the book Czech Art 1939-1989, Programmes, Critical Texts, Documents, which in its original Czech version contains more than 120 texts from these years.