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“Philosopher of Structures” Forgetting, Archive and Rediscovering of Jaroslav Josef Polívka
Jackson, Ladislav ; Jakubec,, Ondřej (referee) ; Šlapeta, Vladimír (referee) ; Zálešák, Jan (advisor)
The main output of the thesis is the exhibition Philosopher of Structures: Architect and Engineer Jaroslav J. Polívka (18861960), which was realized in 2021 at the Faculty of Fine Arts Gallery in Brno and in 2022 at the Jaroslav Fragner Gallery in Prague. The textual part of the work, that accompanies the exhibition, presents the extensive work of Jaroslav Josef Polívka, placing it in the context of the development of global modern architecture and in relation to the working conditions of architects and engineers in the first half of the twentieth century. Following on from the main areas of the exhibition, it elaborates the themes of the places and locations in which Jaroslav Polívka worked and for which he designed, the social networks in which he integrated himself in and of which he was an actor, and the archive, the structure of which played a significant role in his forgetting and rediscovery. The aim of the work is not to manipulate Polívka into the role of a “great architect”, but to present him as a co-creator of a solid building culture in the Czech lands, abroad in Europe and in North America, to show the diversity of building types in which he was able to find opportunities for technical and structural innovations, which he wanted to contribute to the improvement of modern life. The aim of the work is to rehabilitate the structural engineer and architect, to detach the narration of his legacy from other authorities, as it has been a custom in domestic and American historiography (representatives of the Czechoslovak avant-garde, Frank Lloyd Wright) and to indicate a number of non-artistic and non-architectural circumstances that shaped the form of his works.
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