THE recent Plecnik exhibition at Prazsky Hrad has given pause (cause for reflection) to many - foremost in
thought-provoking content due to the continuing respect and favorable historical judgement due the so-called
First Republic under TGM (Tomas Masaryk). It is the reverie (dreaming) associated with this recent
extraordinary re-presentation of Plecnik's work for Prague (and elsewhere) that suggests a second coming for
Czech humanism.
UNDER the patronage of Vaclav Havel, Borek Sipek is poised to make both minor and significant changes to
contemporary Prazsky Hrad - first in the second courtyard and, then, no doubt, in the interior of the Castle
as circumstances dictate. It is the work in the second courtyard that will set the tone (if not standard) for
further changes at Prazsky Hrad.
SIPEK has been called the successor of Ettore Sottsas in the decorative arts, having produced a solid body of
internationally acclaimed work in decorative glass and furnishings. Throughout this prestigious rise to
prominence, he has infused the spirit of a type of late-modern expressionism into works destined to be sold
in international boutiques frequented by wealthy and earnest collectors of his brand of "mannered" de luxe
objects for contemporary interiors. A just opened exhibition in Denver, Colorado (USA) - "Sipek: Auratic
Architecture and Design" (Denver Art Museum, through January 1977) will serve to showcase these wares, but
also, and importantly, proposals and projects architectural.
SIPEK studied both architecture and philosophy. He professes an admiration for Nietzsche, Walter Benjamin
and Michel Foucault. It is something of a mystery how such anti-bourgeois philosophes might have informed
Sipek's de luxe wares produced for the likes of Driade, Sevres and Swarovski. But in the architecture of
Sipek, especially the new entrance to the Czech President's office in the second courtyard at Prazsky Hrad,
there are intimations of formal innovation that herald a quixotic, symbolic intellectual quest for new formal
(semantic) configurations consistent with Nietzsche's statements in "On Truth and Lies (In a Nonmoral
Sense)": namely, Sipek has climbed onto the highest level of the "existing scaffolding" and has begun to
perform audacious stunts for the public in this first gesture in glass, wood, terrazzo, Swedish granite, and
patinated and gilded bronze.
WHAT are the iconographic gestures in this winged portico? The bronze canopy, the gilded leopardess, the
studded glass door - each plays a referential part in connecting the project to the existing architectural
forms at Prazsky Hrad. The patinated bronze canopy is clearly a descendent of the roofscape of the cathedral
complex. The gilded leopardess is descended from the Czech rampant lion (protocol problems precluded using a
lion). The plate glass door with applied glass studs is clearly both an allusion to the armored doors of old
Prague and a concession to the modern safety regulations that dictate vertical glass surfaces be marked with
signal devices to prevent pedestrians crashing through the glass. The red Swedish granite steps are made of
the same stone used in various parts of the castle in the elaborate paving program developed under Plecnik.
Both the winged gilded leopardess (by sculptor Michal Gabriel) and the brass door handle are homages to
Plecnik's own use of rich detail in the various portals of the castle he altered under Masaryk.
THE programmatic side of this composition has more to do with the overall plan of the second courtyard than
the simple realignment of the entry to Havel's offices. Sipek is attempting to divert attention to the
second courtyard, from the third, having witnessed (by video) that most pedestrians come through the 1614
Matthias Gate (designed by Giovanni Mario Filippini) and head straight for the third courtyard gate. These
gestures are meant to arrest movement and alter this rush to St Vitus cathedral and St George basilica.
The second courtyard is, after all, very much a secular zone without the regal and ecclesiastical overtones
of the third. This site, the second courtyard, indeed, deserves further articulation to emphasize its place
in the schema of the Castle precinct. As a type of temenos, Prazsky Hrad has ceremonial aspects not unlike
the Greek Acropolis, with passages and enclosures disposed in a hierarchical manner. The third courtyard is
certainly the choice destination, but the second is analogous to the transitional importance of the Temple
of Athena Nike at the Acropolis: it has its singular importance and its collective role in the entire
temenos.
SIPEK has produced, then, the first gesture in a makeover of the second courtyard that embodies the ideals
of the Havel Presidency - "the era of Havel". The whimsical winged leopardess is a feminized counterpoint
to the masculine, regal lion. The winged form of the canopy relates to the three-bay interior stair, just
inside this new entrance. The formal entry shifts the location of the former entrance to the New Palace from
the passage to a prominent location visible as one passes through the Matthias Gate into the second
courtyard. Two doors, in fact, comprise this entry: a "representational door", larger, and scaled to the
facade; and an "everyday door", the glass door. The former interior corridor becomes a foyer or lobby. Once
inside, Sipek furnishings provide a stylish waiting room that echoes the sensibility of Havel's office.
Grandeur is sublimated in favor of intimate, richly detailed furnishings that suggest you have entered not
a presidential enclave but an intellectual salon. The verticality of the facade (built by Antonin Haffenecker
between 1772 and 1775) is emphasized in the Sipek entrance by the carefully proportioned and tapered columns
that echo the pattern of the baroque building's facade and the prominent neo-gothic spires of the western
end of St Vitus cathedral (added in the last phases of building between 1873 and 1933 undertaken by Josef
Mocker and Kamil Hilbert).
SIPEK has, by mysterious aesthetic means, deconstructed the trappings of power. Here, Foucault's influence
is evident. In a sense, Sipek serves at the pleasure of the President. It is inevitable that he will be
seen as a latterday Plecnik, bringing to the Castle new forms and references that embody the change of
guard that has occurred since the 1989 Revolution. He is very much a court architect, as Bramante was, or
Plecnik was. His work will be read as a text written in stone, bronze and glass.
POSTSCRIPT
THERE remains, then, the necessity of "reading" Sipek. People often say "Sipek is Sipek", as if he existed in
some hermetic world of his own. Given the above analysis, Sipek is not Sipek. He is architect and mirror.
A more interesting role to play. Watch him and "read" him. He is part of a circle, as Plecnik was part of
a circle. There remains, too, to be seen, the balance of his work in the second courtyard - the new gallery
he is working on and its entrance, and the controversial proposal to plant trees inside the second courtyard
(displacing some of the paving that covers perhaps too much of this important territory). These additional
gestures will alter the second courtyard considerably, making signature "auratic" elements prominent in a
somewhat bland courtyard. They warrant attention. Each aspect "speaks" to the public about the nature of the
Czech Republic - its political and cultural position. As semantic forms, the entries, and the hypothetical
trees, are clear exhortations to "lighten up". Freedom of expression is the first of the many rights of man.
