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The Czech Exposition has its Premiere in Prague

The firm Film Dekor has been preparing the exhibits that will represent the Czech Republic at Expo 2005 since this past October in a hall belonging to the Prague company Kolbenka. Up to thirty people have been working a full sixteen hours a day making precise laminated molds, polishing, painting and finally assembling the individual elements of the Garden of Fantasy and Music. Some of the smaller items are made by their creators elsewhere and are brought into the studios to be tested. These tests ran from December 15 to January 15. Much has already been written about what the exhibition as a whole will look like, so let's take a look at how the individual items were made and what unseen inventiveness and hard work went into their creation.

Even though in today's world it sometimes seems that notions about skilled Czech hands belong to the past, a tour of this hall and the items under construction cannot help but create a feeling of pride in all that we have been able to dream up and then bring to reality, how we have been able to improvise in the best possible sense of that word. In today's overly technological world the individual items are a mixture of unique ideas and precision handiwork. Every part here is made by hand, ground and polished for hours and hours, ensuring that the final result is perfectly smooth and that the individual parts fit together perfectly. Given the distance of Aichi from Prague it will not be possible to fundamentally alter anything once it is on site, meaning that everything must be perfectly made in the Czech Republic with the highest degree of precision; this means that the individual parts will only need to be assembled in order to welcome the first visitors to a perfectly functioning exposition on March 25.

At the beginning of the entire process, there were simple drawings that were transformed into detailed plans; the feasibility of their construction was verified and their technical parameters modified to make the exponents safe for visitors and actually capable of being shipped to Japan. There was, for example, the case of the body of Petr Nikl's caterpillar, through which the pavilion will be entered. It will not have five but six segments because the original size of each segment did not match that of the containers that will be used to transport it to Japan. The Water Piano, which will create fantastic images on the walls of the pavilion, is in reality an old Petrof piano with an English mechanism from the beginning of the last century, which the artist has transformed into a magical machine. Striking a key on the keyboard will create a wave on the surface of a pool of water and an image of this surface will be spread throughout the pavilion using a system of mirrors on the bottom of the pool and lights - each strike will create an original work of art that will beautify the exposition's environment. The Water Organ was created in cooperation with the master organ makers of the Krnov factory. An old harmonium has been transformed into a generator of original sounds that are a combination of the muffled sounds of the organ and water.

Artists whose works were created at Kolbenka took an active part in their actual construction. During our visit we were fortunate to see how the musician, artist and photographer Jaroslav Kořán finished his work "The Sounds of Metals," which he himself refers to as a "dreamy astronomical clock." What it is, is a system of metal poles, each of which is tuned to a specific tone creating a sort of giant xylophone that the visitors themselves will be able to strike with a hammer. The instrument produces gentle, dreamy, almost meditative tones that are pleasing to the ear and induce a feeling of calmness and harmony. This is ultimately one of the artists' goals, to turn the Czech Pavilion into a sort of retreat where it will be possible to lie back and loose oneself in an atmosphere created by others, or conversely to actively create that atmosphere for everyone else - perhaps by producing sounds from metal, wood and stone that will ring out for other visitors. Simply put, the exposition is built in such a way as to provide a sort of protected relaxation zone where each worn out visitor is welcome and where they will discover for themselves a space in which they can rest, contemplate or join in the games.

Playfulness is encoded in each of us and it is only with age that we consign it to our subconscious out of fear of appearing foolish. If however, as adults we get the chance to play without feeling childish or embarrassed, very few of us would not take advantage of such an opportunity. This is something that the exposition's creators are counting on. "All of the games are really quite simple. We tried to stay away from complicated technological devices where Nature's wisdom is completely missing. And what we really didn't want was an exposition engulfed in electronics which have saturated the modern world. We tried instead to return to the playfulness that is inside each person. Because today anyone can find all sorts of information on the Internet, it's not necessary to tell the world that we've got Prague Castle, Charles Bridge and beer. Here, an original idea is being presented," said the architect Jaromír Švarc, whose company Film Dekor is developing the exposition. A similar approach was used by the creators of the Montreal '67 exposition, where visitors to the legendary Kino-Automat by Radúz Činčera were able themselves to control the showing of the film.

Let's now leave the interior of our pavilion so we can take a look at the unusual faćade by Barbora Škorpilová, who is also designing the interior of the restaurant. This unique faćade, made up of almost 20,000 tapered spruce poles (which are also referred to as "thorns") was created in keeping with the theme "Nature's Wisdom." Even the entrance to the pavilion should evoke feelings of energy and movement and at the same time correspond with the playfulness and originality of the exposition's interior. An unusual support system was developed to attach the thorns to the faćade; this allows the faćade to appear differently from every point of view as if it was waving and moving. Making thorns that would be able to survive the elements and at the same time meet very high safety standards turned out to be quite a challenge. It was determined that only the highest quality spruce cut from the interior section of the tree trunk - no knots or other imperfections were tolerated - could be used to make the thorns. The implementation team was faced with the difficult challenge of where to find sufficient quantities of such high quality timber. Currently, they are working with almost all the sawmills in the Czech Republic to ensure the delivery of this specially selected wood exclusively for the needs of the Czech Pavilion. In closing, just to get an idea of how much wood will be needed: if the thorns were laid end to end, they would form a line almost thirty kilometers long.

What to say in conclusion? Perhaps only to thank all of those people who have contributed to the planning and implementation of the exposition. Their creative arts, skillfulness and inventiveness without a doubt also represent the "Art of Life."

Martina Hončíková

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