ellement architects

Jitka Ressová

Jan Pavézka

Architect Jitka Ressová and designer Jan Pavézka founded the ellement studio in Zlín in 2002 with other colleagues. They have completed a number of successful projects of reconstruction, public spaces, designing exhibitions and the popularization and rehabilitation of a specific phenomenon of Zlín’s interwar architecture, the Baťa House.

SEFO’s main exhibition takes place in the so-called Triple-hall, a space dominated by the late classicist timbered roof of the former prison of the district court. In the 1990s, under the curatorship of Pavel Zatloukal and Michal Soukup, it was adapted by architect Michal Sborwitz for the needs of the Olomouc Museum of Art. A quarter of a century of gallery activity, the varying needs of individual installations and respect for the parameters for displaying collection objects gradually overlapped the original architectural intention. Conceptually and physically. Plasterboards and foils on glass took away the key value of Sborwitz’s concept – daylight unifying an inherently complicated space.

Our installation input thus became not the addition of new elements to the installation, but rather the uncovering, cleaning and rehabilitation of the original architectural intent. Sunlight, transparencies, and unexpected vistas returned to the gallery, as did some of the original materiality and architectural detail. The adaptation of the Triple-hall from 1993-2001 becomes part of the triennial as an exhibit, resonating with the installations, thematizing originality and offering the possibility of looking back in time, realistically relating to the supporting theme of monument, document and mockument.