{"id":214635,"date":"2023-08-04T10:11:43","date_gmt":"2023-08-04T14:11:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/interiordesign.net\/?post_type=id_project&p=214635"},"modified":"2023-08-07T09:29:57","modified_gmt":"2023-08-07T13:29:57","slug":"museum-of-applied-arts-brno-czech-republic","status":"publish","type":"id_project","link":"https:\/\/interiordesign.net\/projects\/museum-of-applied-arts-brno-czech-republic\/","title":{"rendered":"Inside the Museum of Applied Arts in Brno, Czech Republic"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\n
\"a
Svoboda also devised the Cave, where a steel viewing platform provides a panoramic view of wall shelves displaying 234 products representing the history of Czech industrial design.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\n

August 4, 2023<\/p>\n\n\n

Words: <\/span>Peter Webster<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Photography: <\/span>BoysPlayNice<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

\n

Inside the Museum of Applied Arts in Brno, Czech Republic<\/h1>\n\n\n\n

Founded in 1873, the Museum of Applied Arts in Brno, Czech Republic, is among the world\u2019s 10 oldest such institutions, although, as its director Jan Press acknowledges, \u201cIt took another decade before the building itself was constructed.\u201d A handsome, three-story Renaissance Revival\u2013style palazzo by architect Johann Georg von Sch\u00f6n, who was also the museum\u2019s first director, the building\u2019s interiors were lavishly decorated with frescoes, stucco, stained glass, and other quattrocento-inspired embellishments.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cFrom the start, it was clear the museum would expand,\u201d Press continues, which it did almost immediately. \u201cDuring a 14-month remodel in 1888, its total space doubled.\u201d The building was largely reconstructed in 1945, repairing severe wartime bomb damage and making multiple additions and reconfigurations. In 1961, the museum merged with the Picture Gallery of the Moravian Museum to create the Moravian Gallery, a multisite art museum\u2014the country\u2019s second largest\u2014that now comprises six separate structures including Von Sch\u00f6n\u2019s palazzo and the bright-yellow house where Josef Hoffmann was born.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Architect Ivan Kolec\u030cek Preserves Museum History Through Design<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\"furniture
At the Museum of the Applied Arts in Brno, Czech Republic, furniture by Lucie Koldov\u00e1 floats midair in a new atrium gallery, part of a three-year renovation of the 1882 Renaissance Revival\u2013style building by Ivan Kolece\u030ck Architecture, with a number of significant interventions by other leading Czech architects and designers.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Between 2019 and 2021, Czech architect Ivan Kolec\u030cek\u2014principal of an eponymous practice based in Lausanne, Switzerland, specializing in the restoration and conservation of historical buildings\u2014completed another major renovation of the museum. \u201cThe aim was to come as close to the original shape as possible,\u201d Press says, \u201cpreserving historical motifs and restoring damaged decorative elements without resorting to the use of replicas. Kolec\u030cek also utilized his own contemporary style, characterized by simple, minimalist forms, which creates an interesting contrast between the old and the new.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A good example of these juxtapositions is found in the atrium flanking the main lobby. The architect created the three-story volume by removing the ground-floor ceiling, opening the space to the huge skylight above, and flooding the adjacent lobby with daylight via a colonnade of soaring archways\u2014a classical architectural form rendered in Kolec\u030cek\u2019s signature pared-down aesthetic. Equally minimal, but completely contemporary, are several glossy-white catwalks that zigzag overhead, not only linking various galleries but also providing platforms for up-close viewing of site-specific installations suspended in the atrium. Clad in aluminum panels and supported on rolled-steel girders, the sleek footbridges evoke the dynamic power of bullet trains speeding toward the future.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Museum Standouts Include Catwalks and Cloud-Shaped Terrace Canopy<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
\"Studio
Clad in glossy aluminum panels, Studio Olgoj Chorchoj\u2019s catwalks zigzag across the airy three-story space.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Designed by Prague\u2019s Studio Olgoj Chorchoj<\/a>, the catwalks are one of many attention-grabbing interventions\u2014others include a robotic caf\u00e9, a cloud-shape terrace canopy, and a pair of massive floor-to-ceiling cases for displaying ceramics and glassware\u2014commissioned from leading Czech firms. These individuated spaces, permanent installations, and bespoke structures reflect a reconceptualization of the renovated museum, now marketed under the rubric ART DESIGN FASHION. \u201cWe don\u2019t focus exclusively on any one of them,\u201d Press explains. \u201cOur goal is that each is perceived not separately, restricted to itself, but rather as part of a triunity. Art can be found in design and be fashionable; design and fashion can be artistic.\u201d It\u2019s a multilayered, boundary-erasing approach in which the three disciplines are show\u00adcased not only through exhibitions but also in the very look of the museum itself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Arriving in the lobby, visitors are naturally drawn to the light and dynamism of the atrium glimpsed through its frame of monumental arches. There\u2019s equivalent energy in another Studio Olgoj Chorchoj installation in which an icon of Czech aeronautical design\u2014Karel Dlouh\u00fd\u2019s L-13 Blan\u00edk glider from 1956\u2014is suspended vertically next to the glass elevator. The sailplane remained in production for two decades and is still the most widely used glider in the world. Of course, Moravia and Bohemia are even better known for the fine glassware produced there since the 13th century. The museum, which has more than 11,000 pieces of glass and porcelain, commissioned designers Maxim Velc\u030covsk\u00fd and Radek Wohlmuth along with edit! architects<\/a> to create an open repository for the massive collection. The collaborators devised a system of stackable glass-and-steel display cases that spans two rooms\u2014the glittering Light Depot, where walls, ceiling, and cabinet frames are stark white; and the moody Black Depot, with inky walls and obsidian metalwork\u2014that offer dramatically contrasting experiences.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Graphics Chronicle Czech Product-Design History<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
\n
\n

Graphic designer Tom\u00e1\u0161 Svoboda provides more theatricality in the exhibition spaces he installed. The Cave, which offers a panorama of Czech product-design history, has walls lined with floor-to-ceiling grids of deep shelving on which 234 significant items from the 19th and 20th centuries are displayed. A steel viewing platform runs down the center of the room allowing visitors to peruse the collection from on high or to examine the elaborate coffers of the restored ceiling close above. Svoboda gets to address the 21st century in \u201c2000+ Fashion,\u201d a permanent exhibition of apparel and accessories created since the millennium by Czechia\u2019s leading designers, including Libe\u030cna Rochov\u00e1, who gets a large section to herself. Mannequins are arrayed on a revolving catwalk, its steampunk aesthetic referencing the nation\u2019s well-developed DIY culture, while fresh-as-paint fashion photography flashes across a bank of video screens, pointing toward tomorrow.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Like Janus, architect Marek Jan \u0160te\u030cp\u00e1n also looks to the past and the future in Caf\u00e9 Robot, a small cube of a coffee bar, its walls, ceiling, and floor a checkerboard of backlit glass panels. Visitors to the caf\u00e9, which was inspired by the famous bedroom interior at the end of Stanley Kubrick\u2019s 1968 movie 2001: A Space Odyssey, order coffee from a talking androgenic hologram that serves it via a robotic arm. \u201cBy far the most popular brew is the so-called Selfiecinno,\u201d Press reports. \u201cA camera takes a photo of the customer, which is then printed in edible ink on the foam in the cup.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

\n
\"a
Frank Tjepkema\u2019s Pearl Drop, a pendant fixture for the Bohemian glassmaker Preciosa, hangs in the Votive Hall, a staircase space with restored 19th-century murals and stained glass.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

The principal of Atelier \u0160te\u030cp\u00e1n practices interactivity on a grander scale with The Cloud, a diaphanous multimedia canopy floating above the ground-floor terrace. Made of aluminum, steel, glass, and a galaxy of LEDs, the nebulalike installation glows, changes color, and emits sounds in reaction to stimuli from the immediate environment. \u201cIt also alludes to the surrealist works of painter Josef \u0160\u00edma,\u201d Press observes, referencing the artist\u2019s use of clouds as a symbol of creativity, imagination, and communication\u2014all qualities on prominent display throughout the dazzling museum.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Walk Through the Museum of Applied Arts in Brno, Czech Republic<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\"mannequins
Mannequins are displayed on a revolving steel runway in \u201c2000+ Fashion,\u201d an instal\u00adlation by graphic designer Tom\u00e1\u0161 Svoboda focused on the country\u2019s contemporary apparel and accessories industries.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"Demon
The splendor of the restored lobby\u2019s original architecture and decoration by Johann Georg von Sch\u00f6n, the museum\u2019s first director, is joined by Kri\u0161tof Kintera\u2019s Demon of Growth, a playful assemblage of balls, flasks, and other round shapes.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"a
The illustrations and graphics festooning the double-height coat check are by Czech artist Ji\u0159\u00ed Franta.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"a
Svoboda also devised the Cave, where a steel viewing platform provides a panoramic view of wall shelves displaying 234 products representing the history of Czech industrial design.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"an
His fashion installation includes a bank of screens showing magazine-ready shots of the latest clothing styles.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"a
The Respirium, a multifunctional space by street-furniture designers David Kar\u00e1sek and Michael Tomalik, offers a moment of quiet repose next to the busy terrace.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"Cafe
Inspired by 2001: A Space Odyssey, Atelier \u0160te\u030cp\u00e1n clad Caf\u00e9 Robot in a checkerboard of backlit glass panels and installed a robotic arm that serves coffee.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"a
In the windowed void next to the glass elevator, Studio Olgoj Chorchoj suspends an L-13 Blan\u00edk glider by Karel Dlouh\u00fd, a 1956 classic of Czech design that\u2019s still the most widely used sailplane in the world. <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"glass
For the museum\u2019s extensive glassware and porcelain collection, designers Maxim Velc\u030covsk\u00fd, Radek Wohlmuth, and edit! architects conceived an open repository of steel-and-glass display cases, some painted obsidian to create the Black Depot.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"glass
Others were painted white and installed in the equally snowy Light Depot.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"Atelier
Floating above the terrace, Atelier \u0160te\u030cp\u00e1n’s Cloud installation comprises an interactive canopy of aluminum, steel, glass, and LEDs that glows, changes color, and emits sounds in reaction to nearby stimuli.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
PROJECT TEAM<\/h6><\/div>\n\n\n\n
studio olgoj chorchoj (catwalks)<\/span><\/a>: michal fron\u011bk; jan nemecek<\/span><\/section>\n\n\n\n
mmcit\u00e9 (respirium)<\/span><\/a>: david kar\u00e2sek; michael tomalik<\/span><\/section>\n\n\n\n
edit! architects (depots)<\/span><\/a>: maxim velc\u014dvsk\u0233: qubus design studio; radek wohlmuth<\/span><\/section>\n\n\n\n
atelier \u0161tep\u00e1n (caf\u00e9 robot, cloud)<\/span><\/a>: marek jan \u0161t\u011bp\u00e1n<\/span><\/section>\n\n\n\n
cave, 2000+ fashion<\/span><\/a>: tom\u00e1\u0161 svoboda<\/span><\/section>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n