Toolbox

Young Blood – ‘I am a Young “Hungerian” Architect!’ is a sequence of exhibitions organized by the Centre for Central European Architecture, Prague, Czech Republic in 2006. The aim of the sequence was to introduce the youngest generation of Central European architects country by country not through there work but through an installation specially reflecting on the call words of the exhibition series.

The installation is reflecting on the ambivalence of the architectural designing process. The architectural plan is the abstraction of a building. It is symbolizing a factually existing object with abstract structures. Toolbox is intending to visualize this ambivalent relation with matching abstract designing principles with casual objects and tools seemingly arbitrarily to make the audience think about this ambivalence.

Concept Script.

’It’s late in the afternoon. Two men are sitting at a meeting room table waiting for somebody.
Meanwhile, they are sorting out papers on the table and one small object.
The bell rings. The one they have been waiting for has arrived.
“Good afternoon” – They offer him a chair.
“Good afternoon. As I can see, things have advanced. So, let’s go directly to the point.” – He leans over the table and starts examining something.
“…I see” – Clinking sound fills up the room for a while. Meanwhile, the two men are preparing a blue toolkit (the same as in their shop logo). They want each tool to be readily available.
“…hmm” – and he continues inspecting something.
“We thought that if we replaced these parts, the surrounding ones would have more space” – The rustle of paper stops.
“The original aims included keeping a certain degree of flexibility. Besides, it is also viable to evaluate it from an economic point of view.”
“Interesting. Then we could also tighten it somewhere.” – He takes out his own tool from the waistcoat pocket, pointing at the spot. – “How about the cut we talked about the last time?”
“That makes the edges a bit ragged.” – He sighs with relief seeing the tool getting back in the pocket.
“What if we planned it?”
“…hm”
“Luckily, I have a sample with me. Here you are.” – pushes it towards the other two.
“I think all that’s needed is a hammer and some soldering. What do you think?”

… An hour later …

The two men are sitting at the table again.
“Pull yourself together, we have to make another important intervention today.”
“You’re right.”
They pull the toolbox closer and take out a black leather case from the lower drawer. It contains much more delicate, smaller and shinier tools than the ones they had been using so far.’


Toolbox, 'I am a "Young Hungerian" Architect!' - Prague, Czech Republic
installation, exhibition

design: 2006
installation: Opaq Architect Studio
Bajsz Edit, Cservenyák Eszter, Kiss Ida, Kovács Gergely, Matúz Melinda, Molnár Judit, Németh Tamás, Szabó-Petanec Nándor