Hermann Czech: Umbau
Monday 21 April 2008, 7:30am
Renowned Viennese Architect, Hermann Czech will be giving a rare UK lecture at 7.30pm, Monday 21st April 2008 in the Forum at the Department of Architecture and Spatial Design, London Metropolitan Unversity.
Entitled, Umbau, the lecture will concern Czech’s approach to adapting and transforming found architectural situations. The lecture is being hosted by David Kohn Architects and LMU Undergraduate Unit 5.
“Architecture is overestimated. Fifty years ago architects were convinced that modern architecture could cure tuberculosis. Now architects feel called upon to solve problems of greater scope and flock to the mass media to inform us about the population explosion, space flight, pollution, and – above all – about the importance of mass media, repeating what they have learned from it.
This is public relations; it demands a certain journalistic attitude, one that wavers between two states of consciousness: one is confronted with people less educated than oneself, who need a schoolmaster, yet one must play dumb in order to be understood. There is already evidence of a differentiation – as in the music business – between entertainment architecture and classical architecture, referring of course to individual method, not to its pretensions.
Architecture is in fact underestimated. Although new-comers want to design life in the name of architecture, they think that the intent to be progressive is sufficient. ‘Ambiente’ is a word revealing an attitude both unintelligent and false: the arrogance to believe that architecture can save the world, and the modesty to believe that this would only be achieved if all corners are rounded off.”
Hermann Czech, Nur keine Panik, 1971 (No Need to Panic)
Pictured: Urbanihaus
