PODRECCA – АRCHICULTURE

Professor Boris Podreka’s exhibition “Archiculture”
30/01 – 15/03/2023
MAA – Museum of Applied Art, Belgrade

Opening ceremony: 18:00 – 18.30

• Ms Biljana Jotić, Acting director of the MAA, welcome and introduction
• His Excellency Christian Ebner, Austrian Ambassador to Serbia
• His Excellency Damjan Bergant, Slovenian Ambassafor to Serbia
• His Excellency Luca Gori, Italian Ambassador to Serbia
• Mr Miodrag Ivanović, Secretary of State at the Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Serbia, exhibition opening
• Professor Boris Podrecca, author of the exhibition

Coctail and short quide by Professor Podrecca: 18:30 – 19:00

Curator:
Prof. Adolf Stiller

Co-curators:
Biljana Jotić, art historian and MAA acting director
Relja Petrović, architect
Dr Julia Balla, curator

Organizer: the Museum of Applied Art in cooperation with the Embassy of Austria and the Austrian Cultural Forum; the Embassy of Italy and the Italian Cultural Institute; the Embassy of Slovenia; the Italian Cultural Institute and Wiener Städtische.

A word from the Director:

The Museum of Applied Art in Belgrade cordially invites you to the opening of the Boris Podrecca exhibition entiteled Archiculture.  Born 30 January 1940 in Belgrade, the architect, anthropologist, critic and professor started his journey in his hometown and arrived to all parts of the World. The audience in Belgrade is given in 2023 and precisely on this date, a unique oportunity to be presented with an exhibition having its pillar architecture. Besides the architectural projects from the recent Vienna exhibition, the curiosity of the MAA exhibition are the objects related to Applied Art, while the audience will also get to know Professor Podrecca as a painter for the first time. Conquering a space depends on the movement. Life on the frontier, from Belgrade onto Ljubljana and further to Trieste, Venice, Athens and Vienna, his architecture obtained its traits through perpetual movement and discoveries. In Athens, the city he got to know owing to an international competition he won, Podrecca discovered the city and its spatial echo, and became an urban planner at heart. Cities are spaces that are part of him, and in return he leaves a part of himself in the cities.

… the moment when he traded art for architecture was when he found middle space…

Biljana Jotić

 

An exhibition about the famous architect Boris Podrecca, entitled “Archiculture,” will be held in the Museum of Applied Art from 30 January to 15 March 2023.

An active architect-artist cares about the realization of his projects; and while they last – he also fails to age, the exhibition catalog reveals.

Boris Podrecca’s Belgrade-based exhibition at the Museum of Applied Art consists, first of all, of architectural solutions, both those that were carried out and those not executed. Also, for the first time, Podrecca will show the Belgrade audience his works of art, as well as several works of applied art that he has authored.

Based on about the 400 original authorial works that Podrecca has produced so far, a brief overview of his work method implies the following: in each project assignment, he has carefully analyzed the environment, the urban entities, and the site history. Podrecca layers this knowledge with his architecture-inherent endeavors, which primarily derive from theories related to the personalities and works of Semper and Wagner, but also from an interest in singular buildings, structures or special features that belong to the general history of architecture. He further presents them, for instance, through linguistically eloquent formulations (within which he often creates expressions that spring from his polyglot biography) in the form of clarifications of project decisions, while during construction work he provides a precise, substantively functional retort. His creative work process is based on numerous drawings and architectural sketches that he makes by hand on paper, in an age where the technique of drawing is slowly being dissolved. An extensive collection of materials and samples of building components also belongs to this stage of execution. In Podrecca’s work method, models first of all have the function of visualizing the last valid, feasible or already realized solution.

Nevertheless, Boris Podrecca likes to mention his second education, which he acquired outside of secondary school, on the one hand through studying the works of Plečnik, and through his work and the discovery of Mycenae and Babylon, and on the other hand, his 6-month stay in Scandinavia. The Nordic sense of order acquired by working in Ralph Erskine’s studio is present as an established sub-aspect in Podrecca’s work. After all, Podrecca is not an architect tucked away in Viennese ‘subtlety’. He is an author who today, due to his professional roots in eight European countries, holds a special place in architecture. This position is supported by extensive knowledge about many – even the most current – fields of culture, on the basis of which he designs both his lectures and his publications (without any pretensions to label them as scientific). On this occasion, it is very important to highlight Podrecca’s twenty-five years of pedagogical work as a professor. Educating young people, encouraging or motivating them, passing on experiences and knowledge in the analysis of leading topics from the history of architecture flowing into designs (including his own) is a special contribution that should be highly ranked.

Among Podrecca’s exhibitions that have attracted international attention (without pretensions to list them all), prominent are the exhibitions on the oeuvre of Frederick Kiesler (the Vienna Museum of the 20^th century, 1986), the exhibition on Jože Plečnik (Paris Center Georges Pompidou, 1986), Carlo Scarpa (Venice, 1984), with Mario Botta or the Vienna themes, for example the Biedermeier style (the Beijing Imperial Palace, 2000), as well as exhibitions on musicians such as Johann Strauss (the Vienna City Museum 1999). The leitmotif that runs through all of Podrecca’s exhibitions could be the following: creative staging. Perhaps in Podrecca’s exhibitions and his belief in life that everything should be designed (and to put it positively, he is able to do so) there is the veiled denotation of the query that Friedrich Achleitner mentioned in the first major monograph on Podrecca: “How to design an architect?”

Podrecca’s projects are not characterized by prominent symbolism but rather, he connects formal specificities with the theme and context, which succeeds in their imposing their own, new identity. By analyzing the elements that already exist, Boris Podrecca has managed to create a very specific architectural response.

Milica Cukić, museum advisor and PR of the MAA

Boris Podrecca, architect and artist, has roots in Central Europe, thereby inheriting its historical and artistic tradition. He came of age in a multilingual environment, as well as creating in multicultural environments, between Belgrade and Ljubljana, Trieste and Venice, Vienna and Stuttgart. In fact, the parameters of his work are rooted in the architectural theories of Semper, Böttcher and Viollet-le-Duc. Under the influence of Wagner and Plečnik, he has thematized supporting construction and materiality, learning the technique of spatial layers from Loos, and studying the immaterial properties of light during his long travels in the Orient. During his almost five decades of architectural creativity and through his characteristic poetics of differences, Podrecca has forged ahead on an entirely personal path, which is manifested through the power of expression of numerous international achievements in eight European countries, as well as in China.

A SUPPLEMENT TO THE BIOGRAPHY

Author of the photographs: Dragana Udovičić