Aesthetics of sustainable architecture

Surveys and impacts of climate change on the landscape are forcing us to react quickly.  New approaches need to be sought and the topic cannot be narrowed to low-energy, passive or active houses. The professional community, in cooperation with politicians, must find a consensus on the application of key strategies as a part of defining of current demands on sustainable architecture.

Starting this year, the European Commission directive will go into effect in the Czech Republic as well, according to which it will be necessary to make new buildings in the regime of almost zero energy consumption.

The international exhibition will present the main directions of contemporary sustainable architecture applied in cooperation with experts and activists, also from the perspective of aesthetic tendencies that have an impact on the environmental context of contemporary architecture, especially in new urban structures.  It will seek to build new links between our relationship with the environment and sustainability and answer the question of whether architecture can still play a significant role in saving the planet, and not just be a tool for accumulating capital or creating aesthetic forms without an ethical imperative.

In 2008, Jaroslav Fragner Gallery organized the first international project on sustainable architecture, whose main exhibition mapped the current situation in the Czech Republic. The present exhibition should examine the shift in development, especially the question of whether there can be reconciled the requirements for ecological sustainability and architectural-aesthetic quality of buildings.

As part of this project, a student prize will be announced to award the most interesting projects from the summer semester that will arise at schools focusing on architecture and design.