A Green Island in the Heart of Old Prague.
architect Stanislav Fiala
I'll reveal some of my plans. I am about to give a comprehensive review of the new building on the corner of Národní Avenue and Mikulandská Street in Prague, which I regard in many ways as an exceptional architectural achievement. But I will wait for the growing season to publish the report, because DRN (SOD in English language), as this palace is aptly named, wears a lot of green, who, of course, gets the word out.
Construction will be complete when its vegetation blooms. I can only tame my impatience with a design trifle that documents the quality of this modern house very convincingly: as we know, the whole is made up of details. It's that simple. The better the details the house has, the stronger it becomes.
tree in the courtyard, secondary facade, gate: Josef Ryšlavý passier, baked stainless steel technology
And DRN (SOD in ENGLISH language) is lucky. To be luck out is to be lucky: our dear Czech language took this saying without pardons from the German saying "das Glück haben," with the word “Glück” being reclaimed - or rather garbled - to the word door handle. In the case of DRN, this is true as a metaphor and as a fact.
In fact, architect Stanislav Fiala has invented an original door handle that the whole house is equipped with. It's a door handle in the truest sense, with which all the doors open, and that there are certainly… dozens. At the same time, investors are lucky to have approached Stanislav Fiala, because he is an architect who holds his profession in artistic spheres far beyond the mere utility of construction. Moving around in his houses tends to be a surprise experience, after all, it's not the first time I've mentioned it.
Stanislav Fiala named the handle Rocksor. He likes to listen to rock music, which I think is a sign of good breeding for people growing up in the 1960s and 1970s. At the same time, after becoming an architect, he developed a taste for roxors, which are those steel bars of circular cross-section with ribs on the surface serving as reinforcements for the concrete. Roxor… Rocksor. He explained that whenever he found himself on a construction site, there were long armor irons lying around, and he gradually found himself fascinated by their extremely functional and raw aesthetic.
When Stanislav Fiala drew designs for various variants of the DRN (SOD in English language), he thought that the roxor could be turned into door handles for the forthcoming house. At the moment of the decision, it was practically a done deal, all he had to do was shape the iron properly, bend it at the proper angle, choose the size, then have the prototypes made and then cast the handles - as is customary in the field - into brass.
The M&T company from Dobruška, the only one in our country dedicated to the door handles, took care of the production itself. M&T was founded 20 years ago and is still owned by the three Ulich brothers. (Ivo Ulich had been a top football player in the 1990s).
Drn has acquired a handle that feels good to touch and stays in the memory. This is not what I normally do: opening doors can be a subtle experience, a small ceremony, yet all you had to do was use the thing that specifically encouraged it. But it did not occur to Stanislav Fiala, who in his work makes the seemingly mundane material stand out and elevates it to the piédestal. It's his method. He's acting like an archaeologist, reluctant to get rid of anything that might still serve.
In Drn, the story didn't just stop at the roxor door handles, but he put their long rods into play as railings or as handrails for tall glass doors (I learned that they kept the irons from slipping off the concrete). This gave the house an important component of its emerging memory; indeed, we can talk about the newly forming architectural DNA that naturally permeates Drn. As the Zen master would say: He who is lucky is lucky, and some have a real one.
M&T has its own distinctive approach with the virtues that characterise the brand: production of design series door handles from massive brass, technologically advanced backgrounds, but with a large share of manual work, constant innovation and precision solutions to all product details.
The basis is traditional Czech engineering production, which allows for professionally developing new design solutions, introducing new production and technology processes, designing innovative designs, all with the M&T brand.
walls of the basement: painter Patrik Hábl, a distinctive abstract creation at the border of painting and graphics
Unfettered nature's power cut through the facades, the flowers in the flowerbeds followed the sun. The trees found their places and planted their roots firmly on the roof of the building. The DRN has turned green, the work is done.
Stanislav Fiala about M&T:
"Our collaboration was great and simple. There's always beauty in simplicity, and when you meet good people, it always enriches you. For me, the trio of brothers who have, moreover, divided their natural roles in the company are a fairy tale phenomenon. It's a story. Good story."
serie Rocksor, design Stanislav Fiala
serie Rocksor
design Stanislav Fiala