The architects met at the EAAE hybrid conference

From 25 August to 28 August, the European Association for Architectural Education (EAAE) and the Faculty of Architecture of the Czech Technical University organized the annual EAAE Annual Conference and General Assembly. The conference entitled New Dimensions was held in hybrid form. The physical part took place at the CTU in Prague at the Faculty of Architecture, the virtual part was streamed via the Zoom platform. 180 experts and students from the ranks of architecture showed interest in the event, of which 75 participated physically and 105 virtually.

The four-day event was supposed to take place last year, but due to a pandemic it was postponed to the end of August this year. Preparations for the event lasted for 2 years, during which the organizing committee worked to make the program and accompanying activities more attractive.

The conference presented several key topics:

  • Role of the architect: How do the new dimensions of our profession – increasing scale and overlapping disciplines – impact our understanding of the role of the architect in society and in the design process?
  • Universality of architectural education: How can we safeguard the principle of universality of architectural education in the context of the increasing complexity of our profession?
  • Overlapping disciplines: How should architectural education prepare students for the new dimensions of our profession in the environment of increasing scale and overlapping disciplines?*

The individual topics were opened with a lecture by world representatives of architecture, followed by a panel discussion with other experts. The keynote speaker was the prominent American architect Steven Holl. Unfortunately, due to the measures, he did not manage to get to Prague physically, he participated in the event in a virtual form. The other speakers took part in the event physically.

A rich program was planned for the participants during the conference. On Friday, a gala dinner was held in the Strahov Monastery, before which guests had the opportunity to visit the Strahov Library and admire its historic halls decorated with artistic frescoes.

The biggest attraction for the participants were excursions to architecturally interesting places. On Wednesday, August 25, the participants went to Prague and visited, for example, Baba International Exhibition or Villas Müller and Rothmayer. The conference ended with an excursion to Brno, where they could admire the functionalist Villa Tugendhat and the modern wine architecture of the Sonberk winery.

We thank the EAAE client, the CTU Faculty of Architecture, speakers, participants and our Senior Project Manager Veronika Brejchová for a beautiful architectural conference.

“I wanted to thank you on behalf of the organizing committee for the excellent cooperation. The conference went quite smoothly, without a single complication, largely thanks to the commitment and professional approach of Mrs. Brejchová. All participants highly praised the course of the conference…
It was a prestigious international event for the Faculty of Architecture and I am very glad that we represented our school so well. ”
Doc. Ing. arch. Dalibor Hlaváček, Ph.D. – Chairman of the Organizing Committee

*https://eaae2021.fa.cvut.cz/topic/