Dalibor Vesely (1934-2015) in memoriam

Autor(en): Leatherbarrow, David

Objekttyp: Obituary

Zeitschrift: Scholion : Bulletin

Band (Jahr): 9 (2015)

PDF erstellt am: 26.09.2021

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Dalibor Vesely (1934-2015) in Memoriam

No answer is the term Dalibor Vesely often nuity of European culture, its heritage, promise, used to summarize what recent thought had to and task. Other capitals fascinated him, say in response to one or another of the difficult too: Vienna and , also London and Berlin, and decisive questions that face architecture, but none of these indicated so clearly what cities, and our lives within them today. It is also he would have described as the real possibilities the reply many will give to the question why for the creative transformation of modern now, why this unwelcome silence from a voice civilization. Europe was for him both an idea that still had so much to say? No answer. and a living reality, the continuance and Resignation wasn't intended with his use of this renewal of which required disciplined reflection, term; instead, an invitation to thought, to think creative expression, and a sense of common again. The questions that motivated his work purpose. survive his death, for they were not only his but It was in that he met and attended ours, such was his grasp of contemporary the seminars of the Czech philosopher Jan conditions, his penetration into primary issues. Patocka. While widely influential there and Facing his themes without him, resuming the elsewhere in Europe, Patocka's teaching enquiry into the city and its culture, architecture career was a painful struggle, one that gave and its articulations, or technology and its intellectual and moral orientation to Vesely's mixed blessings, means not only thinking with own life and work. Under the corrosive influence him but beyond him, accepting the fact that his of successive totalitarian regimes — first work is unfinished and ours continues. The Nazi, then Communist - Patocka was free answer to his silence cannot be no answer. Yes, from censorship and could teach as he chose the conversations he sought so passionately and for only eight of his 42 active years. As one of enjoyed so folly have come to an end. All we three spokesmen for Charter 77, he had argued have now are some memories and a body of that political freedom included personal writings, texts now seen anew, all together, responsibility and an orientation toward the because nothing more will be added. Perhaps the good, hardly inflammatory principles, but questions he asked bear witness to his legacy no nevertheless ideas that were renounced by the less truthfully than the writings. functionaries who sought to implement Prague, the city of his birth, served Vesely Brezhnev's doctrine in occupied lands. Patocka's throughout his life as an emblem of the conti¬ death in 1977 resulted from a brain hemorrhage i86 Personen /Nach rufe

suffered under police interrogation, preceded sophical convictions. Reversing the roles of by ten weeks of intense persecution. By this the clear and obscure - reconsidering what had time Vesely had already emigrated to been taken for granted - was for Husserl England. But his teacher's life and lessons philosophy's first step, as it was for both Patocka remained with him, and not only him. When and Vesely. Vesely introduced himself to the philosopher Dalibor Vesely's formal education was not, Paul Ricoeur years later, the very first mention of course, in philosophy; he studied architecture, of Patocka's name brought tears to the French engineering, and art, obtaining both philosopher's eyes. No less emotional was professional and research degrees. He Vesely when he told this story. received his Ph.D. from , Much more promising and no less influential having researched Central European baroque were his teacher's early years. In 1934, the architecture. His early interest in the work of year of Vesely's birth, Patocka read at the Kilian Ignâc Dientzenhofer, Balthasar World Philosophical Congress in Prague a Neumann, Johann Santini-Aichel, and Fischer von lecture written by his own teacher Edmund Erlach, and later that of Guarino Guarini and Husserl, also Czech, and founder of the phe- Francesco Borromini, continued throughout nomenological tradition, the style of thought his life. A friendship developed over many Vesely brought to architecture. The mutual years with Mojmir Horyna, a profound scholar respect between the two philosophers was of Santini-Aichel, was very important to him, profound. As a sign that Patocka was heir to a rich as was his long and very close association with intellectual tradition, Husserl gave his student Werner Oechslin, to whose annual "Barock- a desk-top lectern he had received from Tomas sommerkurs" in Einsiedeln Vesely made regular Masaryk, the founder of modern Czech contribution for a couple of decades. In the democracy. Patocka's own writings, often circulated months before his death he was assembling and samizdat, developed Husserlian ideas, revising his many papers and lectures on together with those of his other teachers, baroque architecture, rethinking and enlarging Henri Bergson and . When those texts as chapters for his next book. Vesely attended the Patocka seminars he was Baroque was not a category of architectural style among artists, philosophers, poets, and for Vesely, but one manifestation - perhaps one playwrights, including Vaclav Havel, future president of the most articulate manifestations - of the of the country. The interrogative habit of richness of European culture. When his advice mind Vesely exhibited throughout his life was on curriculum was sought by the organizers of no doubt exemplified by many in this circle, the Central European University he certainly that of its leader. Husserl 's reply to recommended concentration on baroque culture. Patocka's request to come to Freiburg to study After his academic training in architecture, with him in 1933 contained the following Vesely worked with a number of the leading condition: that you truly wish to understand Czech modern architects: Josef Havlicek, and that you bring no preconceived philo¬ Karel Honzik, and Jaroslav Fragner. Much Personen /Nachrufe

Dalibor Vesely, Shanghai, April 2005 (Photo ) later, he would return to these figures and this he fondly recalled hours in his father's studio. architecture, also that of Pavel Janâk, in a Surrealism in both its Czech and wider European paper that reassessed the nature and meaning manifestations remained a lifelong of what is commonly called Czech Cubism. In preoccupation, one that coupled fascination with his early years of professional work in critique, the latter a matter of principle for architecture he also practiced stage set design, him because the encounter with reality, always examples of which, he once admitted, had bitter for André Breton and the poets and appeared in some operatic productions. In 1962 painters he promoted, was, Vesely maintained, he continued his academic work in , inescapable in architecture. where he had contacts with the art historians After Munich, he spent extended periods in Hans Sedlmayr and Hermann Bauer, key Paris. While there in 1968 he met with members figures in the study of baroque and rococo art of the Situationalist Group. His set of and architecture. While there, he also studied colleagues called themselves the Continual- with the great humanist Ernesto Grassi, who ists. With that name in mind it is not surprising had been one of Martin Heidegger's students. that the title he and Mohsen Mostafavi 1962 seems also to have been the year of chose years later for the summary catalogue of Vesely's first lengthy publication - at least the architectural work they had guided at the earliest that has appeared in English - a study Architectural Association School in London was of Czech secular buildings, usually called Architecture and Continuity (1982). Between castles, from the time of the Middle Ages to the 1962 and 1968 Vesely also visited London on 20th century. That text ended in a way that a few occasions. In addition to curiosity about anticipated much of his later work, particularly the architecture developed there, a the theme of continuity. He offered a more personal concern motivated the visits: critique of so-called "purism" in restoration his younger brother Drahosh, with whom he practices: erasing historical accumulations in was always close, was a post-doctoral fellow, order to simulate original appearances later a physics professor at Oxford University. rendered the works themselves lifeless. After the end of the Prague Spring in 1968, Vesely's deep concern for art in its several when a return to that city became impossible, forms was not only academic, nor did it begin England became the permanent home of both with his formal study. His father was a leading brothers. In the years before the Velvet painter among Czech modernists. Late in life Revolution of 1989, his distance from Prague was a 188 Personen /Nachrufe

source of deep regret for Vesely, about which, dialogue. Intellectual preparation seems to however, he mostly kept silent. have been somewhat less important than London held the promise of a stable base cultural background; but most important of all of operations. Among the colleagues he first was a double commitment: to the expression met there were two with whom he collaborated of one's own point of view and a corresponding in different ways for the next several willingness to listen and learn from another decades: and Alvin Boyarsky. person with similarly strong convictions. Rykwert created and led a new course in the Vesely was particularly good at expressing his History and Theory of Architecture at the own point of view, but that didn't prevent him . Vesely and Rykwert co- from listening to - and later selectively adopting taught the seminar from its earliest years to - alternative ideas and interpretations. 1980. Boyarsky was Head of the AA School, Among the conversations he started in where Vesely led a diploma-level studio during those years several continued and remained the same ten year period. These were important to him for decades. The interlocutors intensely creative and productive years of teaching. included: Kenneth Frampton, Alan Col- The Unit system at the AA allowed Vesely quhoun, and Robert Maxwell; slightly later, and a sequence of teaching colleagues to pursue Robin Middleton and Peter Carl. His students design work at the urban scale in several from these early London years took part in London locations, while the Essex program - comparable discussions, a number of whom the seminars of which were mostly held in also remained in close contact: Daniel Libes- London in various locations - allowed him to kind, Alberto Pérez-Gomez, , Robin pursue his work in the philosophical and Evans, Homa Fardjadi, Mohsen Mostafavi, historical dimensions of architecture. Dawn Helen Mallinson, and the author of this note. Ades, a specialist in surrealist and dada art was Such lists could be extended at some length, also at Essex. Their friendship and collaboration for Vesely's teaching was no less welcoming continued for many years, the most influential than challenging for a very great number of outcome of which was the exhibition people. titled Dada and Surrealism Revealed, held at The theme of sharing, not just of ideas in the Hayward Gallery in London in 1978. A dialogue but of all that we value in life became widely-read issue of the magazine AD, titled an important theme of Vesely's teaching and Surrealism and Architecture and guest edited by writing. The topic had one manifestation in Vesely, was another influential outcome. In his rather early embrace of ecological thinking, the early years of this decade of teaching, he on the premise that scarcity and poverty also developed collaborations in architectural are not overcome by abundance but by justice. practice, with figures such as James Stirling An even more striking evidence of his and James Gowan. commitment to the principle and ethos of sharing Vesely believed that advancements in was a topic that appeared with increasing thinking and understanding depend greatly on frequency in his writings: communicative space. Personen/Nachrufe 189

Similar themes had, of course, been taken up outside of Europe. In the 1970s and 80s he in the philosophy of Jürgen Habermas. But was a frequent visitor to Penn State University. the thinker whose work exercised the greatest In 1976 he taught courses at Princeton influence on this dimension of Vesely's writing University, where he developed friendships and thinking was Hans-Georg Gadamer, with both Anthony Vidier and Michael the principle proponent of philosophical Graves. He also had a regular commitment at . Vesely established both a working the University of Pennsylvania, running a relationship and warm friendship with seminar in that university's Ph.D. in Architecture Gadamer over many years, as a result of Program. While there, he resumed contact frequent visits to Heidelberg University and the with Rykwert, who had in those years philosopher's private home. moved to Philadelphia. At Penn he met and The Essex course and AA teaching were had several enjoyable exchanges with Karsten followed by Vesely's engagement with the Harries, who often visited there from Yale , where he taught University. He also collaborated occasionally from 1979 until his retirement. He was with Marco Frascari and very closely with this attached to Emmanuel College, where he served note's author. as Director of Studies. In due course he was When Vesely's major work, Architecture in made a Fellow of the College. An equivalent the Age of Divided Representation. The Question to the Essex course was established in the of Creativity in the Shadow of Production was Department of Architecture at Cambridge, again released in 2004, it was announced as a long- by Vesely and Rykwert. It was called the awaited book. Its genesis and development Graduate Programme in History and were concurrent with the Cambridge teaching Philosophy of Architecture. After Rykwert's and echoed that coupling of the productive retirement from Cambridge and move to the and philosophical dimensions of architecture. University of Pennsylvania, Peter Carl collaborated Many of the book's key concepts - human with Vesely in the development and situations, the tension between embodiment teaching of this course. Wendy Pullan joined and articulation, communicative movement, them and succeeded Vesely as co-director and so on - were equally apposite to project after his retirement. Throughout his two making and historical-philosophical study. It decades of Cambridge teaching Vesely also led was a well-received book, also widely-read. design studios, sometimes in collaboration Vesely was particularly pleased to see it appear with Peter Carl, other times with younger in Czech translation. co-teachers, who themselves developed under Among the many awards and honors he his guidance. Thus at Cambridge, as at the received throughout his life a few were AA, Vesely not only taught architecture personally very significant. In 2005 he was recipient students a practical and intellectual discipline, of the Bruno Zevi Book Award granted by but also taught teachers, and did so as Aristotle the International Committee of Architectural recommended by example. He also taught Critics. One year later the Royal Institute of Personen/ Nachrufe

British Architects honored him with the Annie mainly from the baroque period, was a much- Spink Award for Excellence in Architectural loved companion from the time of his youth Education. And in 2015 he was made an Honorary to his last years. Strings were his passion, with Fellow of the R.I.B.A. an obvious preference for the violin over the Vesely expressed pride in the fact that he viola, if that's a fair inference from the fact was raised in a Catholic country, although he that the violin case was generally left open in never practiced that religion in his adult years. his work room. For a number of years he was He once asked this note's author if he believed a member of a quartet that met irregularly; in God. Limiting the ensuing pause to no mostly he played on his own, he said, but every more than a few moments, he answered his now and then for one friend or another, giving own question with the observation that a the performer and listener equal pleasure. world as rich and beautiful as ours makes one Vesely left behind a large literary estate, a wonder While the subject of transcendence, considerable portion of which remains unpublished. or what he called primary order, occupied He is survived by his brother Drahosh his attention for years and was addressed Vesely, also by three former wives, Blanka von in a number of his writings, he was no less der Becke, Jana Vesely and Efrossyni Pi- concerned with secularization. The shelves of menides. What might be called his extended books in his large personal library that were family numbers many colleagues throughout dedicated to religion and myth were aligned the world, also many former students, and still with those that addressed the history of more readers. Those whose lives were science and the philosophy of technology. enriched by knowing him personally will never Despite his life-long dedication to urban forget his exceedingly acute mind, surprising culture and both the principle and practice of memory, great learning, and disarmingly dialogue, Vesely was a man of great personal delightful wit. His jokes and riddles always left strength who enjoyed solitude. Only half- those who heard them with a smile, and fairly jokingly he often reminded his friends of often no answer. Pascal's injunction against leaving home. Music, David LeatherbarrovJ