When was Kristek born?
Lubo Kristek created the house-assemblage on a street where he lived during his childhood. Kristek was born as a ‘child of war’ in 1943 and one of his earliest memories was of an air-raid alert when his mother ran to take him to the closest bomb shelter.
Where does he live?
With the effectuation of his house, Kristek created a ‘dwelling place’. Yet, at the same time, he formed an object and a space that revitalized the cultural memory, evoked memories and generated an authentic social life.
Under the influence of his artistic object, the non-place, a transit and anonymous space of spiritual rambling, uprootedness and existential solitude, is transformed into a place filled with identity, relationships and specific history.
Ab ovo projection with live performanciesResearch Institute of Communication in Art
Today, the places enabling a meeting of people and sharing of their social lives do not need to be necessarily represented by buildings only, which fulfilled their function as churches or cathedrals in the past, for example.
Music SursumResearch Institute of Communication in Art
From this point of view, the Kristek House enables a deeper reflection on everything that a new, and even more powerful and spontaneous public and social space may be.
The effectuation of a project whose objective was to present the ‘house as an assemblage’ to the public can have not only an aesthetic but also a social and ethical function.
Sisyphiade or Boulder in Time (video) (26 May 2018) by Lubo KristekResearch Institute of Communication in Art
Happening in front of the Kristek House
Kristek House (2015–2018) by Lubo KristekResearch Institute of Communication in Art
This is because such an artistic concept of a house and home can create a unique space and a singular opportunity for a wide spectrum of various gatherings and social relationships.
The Kristek House is both a material and symbolic space, which stimulates human imagination and endows the gatherings of different generations, friends, neighbours and random passers-by with a fantasy dimension.
The reason is that the edifice Kristek spiced up artistically represents a projection screen and, at the same time, an artistic challenge destroying the boring traditional depiction of our houses and cities.
Sisyphiade or Boulder in Time Sisyphiade or Boulder in Time (2018-05-26) by Lubo KristekResearch Institute of Communication in Art
When observing the Kristek House rising in the city space, we may dream, criticize or praise, yet we cannot suffer from indifference, everydayness or pettiness.
Texts by Barbora Půtová, Genius Loci Cobwebbed, RICA 2019, p. 152–155.
The Kristek House was presented to the public in the happening Sisyphiade or Boulder in Time in 2018.
Birth of the Kristek House in Brno (2022) by Lubo KristekResearch Institute of Communication in Art
Short film about the birth of the Kristek House. You can also read the book Kristek House in Google Books.
