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Summer School 2024

Immerse yourself in gesamtkunstwerk in
Prague’s city centre and surroundings.

July 22 – August 2

ARCHITECTURE,  ART AND CRAFTS

WORKSHOP


We will hear the stories of the creation of buildings that were designed down to the last piece of cutlery used in their restaurants, and perhaps even experience for ourselves the working methods of some of the craftsmen and artists. We’ll meet contemporary architects and artists working on buildings not only in Prague but around the world. Examples include the DRN or Špork palaces by architect Stanislav Fiala.

With this information, especially in the second half of the summer school, we will embark on our own furniture design, which will be directly based on materials and crafts commonly used in construction activities. We will experience what it is like to work with the limitations that building materials bring us and in what ways they can in turn stimulate our creativity.

We will encounter not only the architecture itself but also the artworks and craft elements used to create holistic spaces.

What connects the cubist Dům U Černé Matky Boží and the new stage of the National Theatre, or the brutalist hotel Thermal and the transmitter on Ještěd?

It is their integral craftsmanship, which is reflected not only in the architecture of the buildings in question, but also in the complete design of their interiors, including furnishings and collaboration with artists who create artworks directly for the needs of the house and place. This way of working, which we know from other artistic movements, is also applied in the above- mentioned styles to the architecture itself. We are talking here about a German term – the so-called Gesamtkunstwerk. The expression „total work of art“ can also be used.

During the summer school, we will not only encounter unique Czech buildings from all the above-mentioned periods, but also, and above all, works of art and applied art that were an integral part of these buildings. We will visit important works of Czech glassmakers and workshops where the craft of glassmaking is still maintained today, unique buildings with innovative technical details and places where unique building materials were used in their creation. We will see with our own eyes the result of the combination of names such as architect Karel Pragr and glassmakers Stanislav Libenský and Jaroslava Brychtová or, nowadays, Stanislav Fiala and Patrik Hábl.

Like what you see?

Don’t hesitate and APPLY NOW for our Architecture, Art and Crafts Workshop using the button below. Simply fill out the form and get excited! In the meantime, you can look through some of our past editions of Summer School below or read a small report from a Summer School held in 2019.

Take a look at our past

Summer Schools

2019 Summer School ‚Cubical City: Discover Prague through Czech Cubism‘

2018 Summer School ‚Outer Limits: Exploring the Limits of Architecture‘