Young Blood is an exhibition cycle whichmonitors young architectural studios in Slovenia, Austria, Slovakia, Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic; this involves monitoring the production and overall situation of the emerging generation of architects in Central Europe, presenting their work and defining its qualities to the wider world. When the itinerant Young Blood cycle is completed, Young Blood Export - presenting a selection from each exhibition - will tour Europe in 2006/2007.

The project looks at the ways in which young architects approach their profession, and also the manner in which this profession functions on a practical level in the respective countries. An architect is considered to be an artist, sociologist, philosopher as well as manager. The installations reflect the young architect's experience of architectural practice in their home country. The project aims to encourage a broader debate on the importance of quality architecture in everyday life and aspires to become the basis for a communication platform in the field.

Project Description

Young Blood Cycle is a travelling exhibition. In fact the complete cycle consists of six exhibitions, each of which will be presented in the Centre for Central European Architecture in Prague. Subsequently, the installations will be exhibited in the participants' home countries. The whole project will continue until June 2006. (http://www.ljudmila.org/kud_c3/YBrazstava/)

After this series of exhibitions is completed, two representative exhibits from each country will be chosen for inclusion in a follow-up collective exhibition called Young Blood Export. This will tour the participating countries and other countries in Western Europe.

The selected studios all have the task of reacting to the statement: I'm a young (attribute according to nationality) architect! The name of each country is deliberately misspelled. The installations of the participating studios contain original interpretations of this mistake. An installation should therefore express the studio's attitude to the current young domestic architectural scene.

A printed catalogue accompanying each exhibition gives details of the installations along with other information about the participating studios (contact details, profiles of the studios, selected realisations, and lists of awarded projects).

Motivation: Young Architects in Central Europe

The aim of the Young Blood exhibition cycle is to monitor the production and overall situation of the emerging generation of architects in the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Poland, Slovenia and Austria. The essence of the project is to confront young architects' approaches to their profession. The project also compares the experiences of architects in neighbouring countries.

Young Blood is a project of the Centre for Central European Architecture in Prague. The Centre was founded by architects Yvette Vašourková and Igor Kovacevic and art historian Markéta Žácková. They observed that many of the mainstream publications that were available in the Centre highlighted the experiences of architects in Western Europe. 'Our motivation was to have more information about what our neighbours' situation is like. All the magazines have articles about Swedish, etc., architects' situation. But we didn't know the situation of our own neighbours.'

They wanted to know about other young architects in the region, how many studios there were and HOW THEY MANAGED TO SURVIVE. 'The situation is that the young generation of architects are going abroad. Our main objective was not to present the projects/installations but to ask studios to reflect on the experiences of young architects, how studios are working in the conditions they face in their countries. To share the experiences of young architects in Central Europe.'

Innovative Partnerships: Using Media Partnership to Start the Project

A breakthrough in the beginning was a feature by Young Blood in the professional magazine, Stavba, which devoted an entire edition to the young generation of architects in the Czech Republic. It was free promotion which enabled the Centre to build up the project's credibility.

Media attention was useful for other things too. In gathering together participants for the exhibition, the Centre wanted to avoid relying on friendship networks and connections. Instead, participants were to be selected on the basis of a call through local professional media partners. Only in this way could the Centre sustain interest in the project in participating countries and also fulfil the objectives of the research.

Media partners helped to establish contacts with local co-organisers and build a local network of support for the project. Media partnership also allowed the project to fulfil the requirements of the Visegrad Fund. 'It was impossible for us in the beginning to get Culture 2000 funding, as we did not have the network yet. Co-organisers cannot invest in the project. Only Visegrad would help us because they just needed a media partner.'

Local co-organisers were contacted to see if they could get exhibition space for free, or at least try to get local grants to fund the exhibition. In Ljubljana, KUD C3 (a non-profit arts organisation) and AKSL ARCHITEKTI (a young architects studio) helped organise the venue. The City Museum allowed the exhibition to be held there for a bargain price of 500 euros rent.

Some Funding Hitches

Following the first exhibit in Prague, the Centre was able to acquire some funding. But the problem was that they had money to make the catalogues and nothing else. 'All our time, weekends spent in the Centre, is not paid.' The funding may have allowed the organisers to print the catalogues, but they are still looking for money for the 2006 exhibitions.

Although the exhibition cycle has been successful so far, the founders regret the apparent lack of institutional interest in architecture. While other types of initiatives have a reasonable chance, the organisers conclude that 'Architecture studios do not get any funding.'

REFLECTIONS

'Young Slovene architects perhaps have an advantage compared to their western colleagues, because they are used to steering among the cruel reality of informal influential architectural circles, the cruel market of real estate, where an architect's fee seems like charity compared to the work it demands, and among the aesthetic ideals they want to reach with their creativity.' Aleksandra Globokar, University of Ljubljana

'…we would like to highlight the position of young architects in Slovenia, split between the values of today's client: consumerism, money, lack of time and feelings, stress, emptiness, isolation, mistrust, boredom and fear. Instead of good architecture there are symbols of technologically advanced cars and products of famous trademarks; they prefer exaggerated “rich ornament" that for them substitutes the values of modern architecture. Many people driving very contemporary cars live in small one-room flats or inconvenient old-fashioned houses. Young architects would like to change this by providing new approaches, better design and living solutions providing lifestyle according to modern needs.' -360 - kreativni butik, (ARCHITECTURAL STUDIO) 360, Kotnikova 34, 1000 Lublaò,

The work of an architect is nowadays divided into approximately 10% creative and 90 % paper work (tons and tons of documents). Besides that, an architect has to become a part-time manager if he wants to promote himself and live on his work. For this reason there is not much time left for his private creative life. -ZOFA Arhitekti, (ARCHITECTURAL STUDIO) ZOFA Architekti, Povšetova 1, 1000, Lublaò