Sauna (2024)

Full film and publication available at Artyčok TV

Once Upon a Time in Planýrka

6/4—9/6 24 at etc. gallery, Prague

Boundaries of Ambiguity

3/5—7/7 24 at Meetfactory, Prague

exhibition architecture; spatial structure made of drywall profiles, metallic mesh & suspended gratings.

curator*s: Ján Gajdušek, Tereza Havlovicová
production: Nikol Hoangová
installation: Extended production
special thanks: Ruina office & Knauf Praha

Partner

ARKADA (2023)

Shopping malls were built as utopias but sustain an unsure economic promise. The capitalist strive for attention in contemporary shopping malls fails in creating a natural progression from the outdoor market.

The key to breaking this pattern is by reversing the division of power in the mall. We give back power to the building and take it away from the competition for attention and comfortable passivity.

We are breaking trajectories in the building by a series of interventions. These interventions stem from the building's past and present - events, characteristics, rules. Embracing the changed shopping mall leads to an active way of shopping.

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The initial impulse was the idea of a shopping center as a utopia. Our interest in its problemacy was catalyzed by a feeling of overwhelmedness that clashes with the idea of malls originally being built as dream worlds.

The project is based on research of 4 examples of either built or unbuilt utopia - the Ideal City of Chaux, the Industrial City, Amazon distribution center in Dobrovíz and the Rungis International Market. We found connections on the designs being huge structures built for unstable systems and the use of symbolism. Furthermore, we studied texts that develop the topic in uncommon directions, i.e Anca Pusca’s ‘Born to shop’ or the Harvard Guide to Shopping.

On an axis from the East to West in the European context, we bring up the Nový Smíchov shopping center as the first shopping mall being opened in Prague after the fall of Communism in Czechoslovakia. By researching events that took place in the mall throughout its two decades of history, a more-than-human / non-human viewpoint can already be discerned. Studying the rules for visitors brings up loopholes in the system and underlines how vaguely the mall is positioned on the scale from public to private. A number of spatial interventions are brought in. These are further developed in the movie.

The final outcome of the project is a short animated film. It is strongly narrative - the viewer is introduced to the mall by the floor of Nový Smíchov shopping center. The floor acts as an antonym of an ‘overarching’ structure, but still with the architectural function of a part of a building that is held accountable for nearly everything that takes place, and simultaneously foreshadows a feminist implication. She expresses her need to finally be heard out, as she feels used and forced to be polished up and perfect at all times.

Through her eyes, the viewer is introduced to the previously mentioned events, as well as the interventions of an hourglass clock, an angry tree, a cuddling booth, a VR memorial and smelly sauerkraut. These artefacts bring elements of pop culture, sexuality, the phenomenon of west/easternization and others into the aesthetics of a shopping mall, create strong symbolism and show an alternative to the visual sprawl in contemporary shopping centers.

By doing that, together with understanding the strategies used in the design of a market and embracing the mall as a valid typology with a powerful past, we battle the neglect and downfall of buildings such as Nový Smíchov. Moreover, through the character of the silhouette at the beginning of the film, a new architectural practice is introduced - listening to a building, giving it therapy and solving issues with spatial coping mechanisms.