Olomouc as Arts and Architecture

27 Jun 2024 - 22 Sep 2024
Olomouc Museum of Art
(outputs of workshops)
Barbora Výborová, Olomouc - Domovina.
The imaginative power of architecture is enormous and yet has its limits. The traditional integration of art and craftsmanship into architecture will be enriched by new experiments. The integration of art is sought from the very first steps of design, the first sketches and collages. The projects are the result of a collaboration between students of the Miroslav Šik School of Architecture and artists from AVU Prague in the winter semester 2023/24.

The School itself already understands architecture a little differently. The vision is neither an iconic nor a minimalist form. The new merges with the old surroundings, conventional and familiar elements shape the old tuning. The project responds to the site of the design, to its colours, styles and sculpture. The three sites chosen for Olomouc lie on the border between the historic core and the 19th century expansion of liberal progress and historicism. They are not homogeneous, their urban context has multiple architectural traces, both refined and trivial, and varying degrees of obsolescence. Each place is assigned a specific program of urban services with a somewhat unusual character.

The first site is the tram depot in Koželušská Street, which has an unusual geometry and two contexts. On the slope there is a large representative palazzi, the Olomouc Museum of Art and Šépka’s extension. Below the slope are low residential blocks, remnants of walls and restrained pre-war architecture. Above the carriage house will be the “Exhibition & Fun” centre, a place of artistic, design and craft creativity, a place of production, information, exhibition, commerce and training.

The second site is the Flora public area in Smetana Sady and its technical facilities. The new landscape project should be based on the historical traces of the park that can be traced on the site. The fairgrounds are being transformed into an “Arts & Crafts” and serve the professional and wider public all year round and on a daily basis outside of festivals, exhibitions and competitions.                 

The privately owned Homeland as the third site stretches along the Mill Creek arm and Homeland Street. The Shantovka Shopping Gallery can be seen through the dense trees on the banks of the creek. The site already has a strong sculpture, a tall silo with a villa on the roof, and a five-story apartment building on Polska Street. A “Health & Wellness” centre is being designed to replace the industrial fragments, combining a doctor’s house with a gym.


The assignment for artists and architects is refined by the trio of the terms monument-document-mockument. They move at the interface between the overprotected centre and the unprotected edge. A preservation zone is no guarantee of a healthy urban fabric. Vague, unused and unfilled terrain is found by students under the guidance of Miroslav Šik right under the sanctuary. The experiment becomes a controlled integration of art into architecture. It is created from the beginning in direct cooperation between artist and designer.

In pairs, the architects and artists worked together:

  • Viktorie Majoberová, Aneta Ptáčková
  • Amálie Rybáková, Matyáš Kořínek
  • Vojtěch Čepelák, Ema Štěpánová
  • Jakub Zeman, Markéta Volková
  • Michal Šefránek, Lukáš Procházka
  • Martin Řezáč, Magdaléna Feildhauerová
  • Šimon Semerák, Matyáš Fiala
  • Max Mohl, Zuzana Vepřeková
  • Matouš Kučera, Emílie Fňukalová
  • Barbora Výborová, Ondřej Plíva
  • Ondřej Fiedler, Adéla Strnadová
  • Josef Kučera, Jiří Kaňák
  • Hana Kyzlinková, Viktor Svolík