An exhibition of designs from the Urban Interventions Bratislava 2008 and Urban Interventions Prague 2010 projects.
Shared urban space is public property. Urban Interventions represents projects that nobody commissioned. They were all born out of their authors’ inner or professional need, the need to point to what doesn’t work even if there is a way it could or should be made to work, the need to exploit the potential of places where we walk every day, often without seeing them.
The idea for the project Urban Interventions evolved three years ago in the Bratislava studio of Matúš Vallo and Oliver Sadovsky (Vallo Sadovsky Architects), where enthusiastic amateur activities of a circle of friends and fellow students resulted in an exhibition held in 2008/2009 in the Slovak National Gallery.
The exhibition’s success inspired Urban Interventions Prague 2010, held at the Centre for Contemporary Art DOX in Prague’s Holešovice district. The project’s authors, Matúš Vallo and Oliver Sadovský, invited curator Adam Gebrian to collaborate with them in preparing this exhibit. They also founded the Urban Interventions civic association, under whose auspices activities related to the project are organized.
Both Bratislava (49 projects) and Prague (81 projects) witnessed a colorful diversity of viewpoints and approaches. The selected problems and their solutions ran a broad scale from specific solutions for specific places all the way to theoretical reflections on urban issues and playful or picturesque proposals.
In Bratislava, one of the proposed projects is currently being implemented; in Prague, three have already been realized and another three are being developed further.
Even if none were realized, one indisputable contribution of all of the proposals is the fact that they call attention to and identify specific issues.
The Brno exhibition aims to introduce viewers to solutions from two towns that are both geographically and mentally close to Brno, and to lay the foundations for Urban Interventions Brno, which is being planned for 2011 (on the date of the exhibition opening, we will be announcing a call for proposals for Urban Interventions Brno 2011).
Last but not least, exhibition visitors will have the opportunity to view not only the proposed projects, but can also see the inside of Brno’s former penitentiary, which had previously been unused and for which a new creative center is being planned.

Organizer: Městské zásahy

Project authors: Vallo Sadovsky Architects
Project supported by Statutory City of Brno

Urban Interventions Bratislava 2008
Organizer Vallo Sadovsky Architects
Project supported by Grunt, Slovenská národná galéria