The World Architecture Days festival will last for a week. Photo Credit: Michaela Dvořáková
Brno, Sept. 26 (BD) – From 30 September to 6 October, 300 free events will take place across the Czech Republic and Slovakia to mark World Architecture Day on the first Monday of October. The festival encourages visitors to seek out modern architecture and historical treasures in both well-known and unfamiliar districts. It features walks with professional speakers, lectures, workshops, and children’s activities. In Brno, the program spotlights outstanding structures and spaces, and also opens up discussions on the possible use of specific sites or buildings in the South Moravian capital. The festival will feature visits to Bily Dum, the Navrátil Sanatorium in Královo Pole, the renovated Zelny trh Market Hall, and Bohuslav Fuchs’ structures. It also includes architectural walks round past, present, and future structures near the main train station and the Moravské námesti revitalization.
With the motto “Don’t crash, transform!”, the theme of this year’s Architecture Days Festival is reconstruction and revitalization. The programme is tied to the “European Year of Greener Cities 2022” initiative, which aims to showcase green infrastructure and the untapped potential for better urban living.
Another theme of the Brno part of the program is urban greenery, which will focus on the long-awaited revitalisation of the park on Moravské námesti, offer a guided walk through the most important parks in the centre of Brno, and a walk through Černé Pole, which will present the importance of green spaces for Brno’s urban development during its industrial expansion since the end of the 18th century.
A walk around Brno’s public space will emphasise the sensitivity of city planning and illustrate that small modifications can have a large impact. The event also offers a cycling tour through Brno’s architecture and urbanism from the previous 100 years, concentrating on residential areas, housing estates, and shopping parks. Another theme of the program honours Josip Plenik, who was born 150 years ago this year, as well as the late Czech architect Alena Šrámková.
Photo Credit: Michaela Dvořáková
From 29 September to 4 October, Brno will also host the 11th “Points of Breaks Film and Architecture Festival”. On 29 September, Kino Art will present “VALLDAURA: A Quarantine Cabin”, which describes the difficulty and uncertainty of the first lockdown. After the screening, ERA 21 magazine will host a panel discussion. “Queen of Danish Design”, “Paradise Lost”, “History in Retreat”, “Building Bastille”, and a Slovak film, “Čiary” will also be shown. The festival will end on 4 October with a documentary entitled “The Bubble”. For more information, see the website www.FilmArchitectura.cz.
The Architecture Days festival, which has created a network involving more than 180 towns in the Czech Republic and Slovakia in the last decade, is organised by the Kruh Association, which has more than 20 years of experience in the field and long-standing cooperation with architects, associations, and institutions in all regions.
All the events are free of charge, but in some cases, advance booking is recommended for reasons of capacity. The full programme is available at www.denarchitektury.cz.
