Lecture Barbora Řepková

Far Beyond Decorative Architecture: Architectural Education at the School of Applied Arts in Prague

Architectural education can take many forms, shaped in part by the institutional contexts in which it is embedded. Soon after its establishment in 1885, the School of Applied Arts in Prague incorporated a program in decorative architecture as a core component of its curriculum. While this orientation aligned with the school's mission to elevate craftsmanship and industrial production, it soon began to feel limiting, even to the early leaders of the program.
As the concept of "decorating" became less relevant in the early twentieth century, defining the purpose of architectural education at the school became an ongoing challenge. This talk will examine the first five decades of architectural education at the School of Applied Arts, before its elevation to university level. By introducing the architects who taught there and the work of their students, the talk aims to demonstrate that, despite the somewhat precarious position of the school within the broader system of architectural education, it played a unique role in shaping Czech and later Czechoslovak architecture. Furthermore, it will make the argument that this uncertainty surrounding the purpose of architectural education at the School of Applied Arts was, in effect, one of the factors that made it a site of progress and experimentation.