THE LANDSCAPE FESTIVAL CONCEPT 

At present, landscape architecture in the Czech Republic is not afforded the kind of attention and space that it undoubtedly deserves. The main idea behind the Landscape Festival is to increase awareness of the scope, significance and meaning of landscape architecture in its relationship to contemporary architecture, art and public spaces. The Landscape Festival seeks to publicise and to educate, including by cultivating pan-disciplinary dialogue between Czech and international experts, artists, public leaders, and the wider public

ŽIŽKOV 2020

This year’s eighth annual Landscape Festival is once again casting an eye on the landscape around Prague’s Žižkov district. Its aim is to build on past events held at Žižkov freight railway station, on Vítkov and in Lower Žižkov. The primary focus this year will be on outdoor public spaces found in the transport hub above Florenc at the foot of Vítkov, the cycle path under Vítkov, the Ohrada area, Židovské pece park, Parukářka Park and many other areas around Prague 3 municipal distric

PROGRAMME

The festival will emphasise the importance of urban public spaces and greenery via a number of architectural interventions, art installations, exhibitions, debates and public happenings. It will also identify degraded and contentious urban spaces, which offer the potential of being transformed into new hubs of cultural and social activities. Through site-specific installations and happenings, such locations then seek to revive, cultivate and predict future developments in the field. In so doing, a search for the very identities of these locations occurs – a reaction to inherent challenges, and an underscoring of their local value.

HISTORY

After a series of launch-related events around the vicinity of Galerie Jaroslava Fragnera in 2013, the subsequent two years saw the Landscape Festival shifting to the Žižkov freight railway station in Prague. In 2016, the festival shifted to the Silesian town of Opava, and in 2017 to the west Bohemian city of Plzeň. In 2018, the festival returned to Prague, shifting the following year to the north-eastern city of Ostrava, where efforts focused on integrating the historic city centre to the Lower Vítkovice industrial heritage site. In 2020, the Landscape Festival is once again returning to Prague’s Žižkov

Organizer

The festival organiser is Galerie Jaroslava Fragnera, operated by the Architectura association. For more information, please visit www.gjf.cz.