What is, in fact, design? That is to say a good design?
I’d say that nowadays people no longer know what exactly design is, as the idea that we give a nice shape or surface to things is, in my opinion, not true anymore. Today, design is something more complex, which deals not only with the surface but also with new functions.
This is what happened, for example, in the 1970’s when an Italian designer Ettore Sottas created „furniture“ in co-operation with the studio Memphis. He did not assign it any function: nor chair, nor wardrobe, simply just – furniture. This demonstrates a search for new functions, but also the wiping of differences between a free creation and a creation that can be called design. Design is no longer a discipline of utility applied arts, it is a search for new attitude, functions, new categorization into a social world. It is much more complex than it used to be fifty years ago.
Does design only deal with things that have a special purpose, practical things of everyday use, or can it also be applied to purely decorative objects?
This is very problematic. Categories get mixed everywhere, the borders between advertising and free art are disappearing. What does design mean? This word is nowadays used in almost all speech, which have nothing to do with design: we design our way, trip, behaviour, ourselves…, meaning that today, design is something that resembles a life style or something that strives to form a life style. It is not just manipulation with things. We also design phenomenons, i.e. something which is not tangible. I think that this is crucial.
Isn’t then the content disappearing from our actions, if we put most emphasis on the form, the look?
Not completely, I think. The content might be gaining new forms. It can be disappearing from some things and getting a much more significant place with other things. A great part of the design, which I’d call social design, is taken by the influences of so called Cheap Art. This is artistic creation, which is poor, cheap, undertaken by, for instance, homeless people or authors using recycled materials, waste and everything that seems to be losing its value. There has also been an aggressive design which demonstrates our aggressive attitude to the world. With furniture, for example, it used shapes that almost hurt the user. In different words, there have been many different poles and attitudes in design, which have been full of content, sometimes too full, but on the other hand, elsewhere, the content has completely disappeared.
It is a little bit odd to mix attitudes and „packaging techniques“, which basically design is…
This is exactly the trouble. Today, design concerns everyday life, yet at the same time it is somehow getting detached from it. This is done simultaneously. That is why it is so difficult to give it a particular shape, to find a clear definition. I think that design is searching how to position itself, it is surveying and trying out its territory.
Where is mainly the young contemporary creation heading for? Is there a visible current wending its way in a delimited trough or is there a wide spectrum, something like: a bit of everything“?
It certainly is a wide spectrum. On the other hand, the fundamental young trends lead to some ‘eko’design, if I can call it like that. That is what uses ecological materials, cheap recycled materials, waste. It is design which does not want to be exclusive for the mere fact that it uses super materials, even though such design exists as well. Young creators, to put it globally, tend to eko factors. This is very positive. For design is more about a view on things than about having designed objects. And because every view of the world teaches us how to treat the world, the indicated direction is good. It can be understood also by those who have no possessions, mostly by young people who do not have money yet, they cannot afford to buy expensive things and in spite of this they can influence their own existence, their life style, by things that they handle, that they buy themselves and things that are accessible for them. This is what I find very positive in ‘eko’ design.
Recently, there have been the Czech Grand Design awards. Is there, in your opinion, any significant personality in the contemporary Czech scene?
I do not judge creative scene only through design. I see it more broadly and I believe, that present times are not times of great names. It is rather a time of trends and tendencies. Great personalities, whether in applied arts or in free creation, are fading away. Whole generations or parts of generations are coming. These have certain tendencies, waves of proceeding. The times of great personalities such as was the first half of the 20th century is now yielding these trends, which I find good. Marcel Duchamp said at the beginning of 1950’s that artists of the future will go for underground. By this, he wanted to say that great personalities will disappear and that artists will not operate on such exclusive basis. First such signals can be found with Dada movement, where Duchamp belonged to. This repeated between the 1950’s and 60’s and now it is here again, stronger and more global than ever before. I consider this a very positive phenomenon.
If we looked back on the last one hundred years, what or who do you find the most significant, representing a turning point?
The most significant personalities were in architecture. The 20th century was abundant in great architects, Czech and international. The coming of functionalism as a very strong movement, a unified style, which steamrollered everything else and gave the world its new form, whether good or bad, greatly affected not only architecture itself, but also furniture, books, dishes, simply everything… Function and an economical shape, desire for simplicity and purposefulness at the same time, bring a certain aesthetic principle. It is simple, but efficient, because it focuses more on proportions and rhythm, than on the surface and detail. This is what makes it so interesting. Present times go back to the detail and a lot of it was brought in the first post-modern period, because it felt its absence. Right now, details mostly appear in different materials or different conceptions.
A few years ago you and your students protested against new statues, in a wider sense almost against a certain arrangement of public place. Is it possible to ‘design’ a city at all? To influence its appearance. Or do people contribute to its appearance by simply living in it and from time to time by taking something off and putting something in?
These are many questions put together. It would not be good if the look of a city could not be influenced. There is a so called general, a plan which the city should follow. Unfortunately, this plan is not always made responsibly and what is more, many city districts do not always follow it. There is a big lobby around it, because of economic interest, that is why these plans are breached. The city spreads beyond control, satellite villages of business baroque are built around Prague as well as other examples of decadence which in the end will suffocate Prague. Today, it is almost impossible to get from Prague’s boundaries into the city centre, even though Prague is almost empty inside. This is bad for a city.
However, new buildings are being constructed in the city centre as well…
The fact, that some new low quality buildings have been built in the city centre is also unfortunate. I do not know any appropriate building that would be a help for Prague. For example Myslbek or the new shopping centre in Namesti Republiky, have brutally destroyed that part of the city and not only because Kotva shopping centre opposite has become almost empty. Thus a new complex has come to life, for which we will have to seek its purpose, its sense. And the street U Celnice? Horrible, the worst street in Prague. Only abberant buildings were built in there which have nothing to do with architecture nor with Prague. Prague has become full of hideous buildings, that’s a big mistake. The bad buildings from the totalitarian era are still here and recently, new ones have been added to them.
So Prague is haunted by traffic and tasteless buildings?
I see these two matters as crucial. It is difficult to solve the question of traffic in the city centre. If we fill her even more, traffic will get worse. The same goes for the National Library in Letna; it is not just about that it doesn’t suit the place but also the fact that such an important building which is used every day, will only make the traffic worse. The National Football Stadium is the same. This is what I consider an absolute idiocy. Even today, when the fans gather around the stadium, the traffic, which is normally bad, gets even more disrupted. Such buildings should be on the outskirts, where nothing prevents large crowds of people to gather. It is accessible by the underground and there are enough parking lots.
To build such buildings in Letna plain, the only free enclave, where people can do whatever they want without any regulations how to entertain themselves, is a monstrous idea. Nothing should be built in Letna.
Is there anything that Prague lacks?
Car parks. Underground car parks. It is clear that the traffic will never be ideal in Prague, it is a baroque city on a gothic plan and it would be a big mistake to damage this. This means that the traffic in the centre will have to be regulated. Road circuits around Prague would ease the traffic in the city centre a lot but underground car parks are still needed.
Last year, the National Gallery awarded the NG 333 award for the first time. I suppose that you will continue with it. However, how much possibility is there in Veletrzni Palace to expose young design?
Unfortunately, we are not a museum specialised in design. That is what the Museum of Decorative Arts is for. We have tried several times to put these two institutions together, which is a common place all over the world and I believe that these two things cannot be separated. However, so far there has been no political will. All museum employees lobby for their independence because it is more convenient for them. But it is a bad thing from the point of view of presentation. Of course that we present works borrowed from the Museum of Decorative Arts or the Technical Museum and not only in Veletrzni Palace. However, this is not adaptable or flexible enough. We organize a number of events such as Art Interior, architects have commonly some space reserved to present architecture and design. This is an operative part of the permanent exhibition. However, we do not collect it. I am not saying, though, that if an outstanding piece of design enters the NG 333 competition, it cannot win. I don’t think that we have limited the competition to some types of artwork.
The fact that the first time you chose the group Ztohoven suggests something, doesn’t it? What was it that captivated you on their winning work?
It was mainly the fact that the members of the group Ztohoven rather fearlessly entered the social space, being aware of the risks that they were taking. Today’s media space, mainly the news, are a social space common for everybody. We all watch it, we all contribute to it, we all feel it. I do not know if an explosion in Krkonose and its „placement“ in a TV programme is an ideal means. However, the fact that they pointed out that something like that can happen and nobody is genuinely horrified, that it does not arouse a panic such as in the past Wells’s broadcasting did in America, means that it has already become a part of that social space and that, at the same time, we are indifferent to it . The value of their act lies in its openness. I know another group: they, for example, burn the national flag, but before doing so they bleach it grey so that they could not be arrested for that. Or they pretend to have stolen a painting which they actually borrow from the National Gallery through Dům Umeni (House of Arts) in Brno, they place it in a plastic package and seal it to make sure that nothing happens to it, they throw it into water and then quickly fish it out. Such actions pretend a risk, but the risk is not there. That is why I like the work of Ztohoven. It was penetrative, it entered a forbidden area and the creators knew that they could be punished. They take the risk in order to put forward a discussion about our present life and they want to take an active part in this discussion, to deserve their life by entering it and by doing something, even though they are aware of the responsibility that goes with it. This is, what I, personally, quite like