slavonice — Czech Arts and Crafts

Slavonice workshop

Construction craft workshop Slavonice is an association of people who live and work in Slavonice, located at the border triangle of Bohemia, Moravia, and Lower Austria.

They use traditional building techniques to renovate old houses, churches, underground spaces, and historic sites, and they also construct new buildings. They are interested in preserving cultural heritage for themselves and future generations. The association is 33 years old this year. It was founded in 1993 by several people from various fields, and Petr Chadim, the association's builder, has remained with it to this day. He was gradually joined by his family. The workshop employs local people, but it is also a place where other craftsmen and masters can come together when needed.

The workshop is located in a former brewery owned by Jewish owners who had to leave. After the revolution, it was left in ruins, which the workshop gradually transformed into a beautiful complex not only with construction facilities and craft workshops, but now also with a restaurant and a dormitory and spaces for lectures and other social events. Around 2020, things looked bad for the workshop,

but it managed to survive and even expanded with another complex, a craft school.

The school was also created as a challenge for the future, so that schools and universities could find a base here and young students could get to know the building crafts.

Two important personalities also encountered the workshop. The first was Petr Rezek (1948-22), a philosopher but rather a teacher of thinking, who was also interested in manual philosophy and crafts and founded the Manual Propaedeutics workshop at the site for architecture students at the Technical University in Liberec. The second was master carpenter Petr Růžička (1954-23), who was instrumental in the revival of traditional carpentry in our country. He devoted himself to circular geometry, and his constructions and cranes (e.g., the crane based on the Bible of Wenceslas IV or Brunenelleschi's design) attracted a lot of attention.

The workshop has beautiful spaces. Architects often come and ask, "Who designed this for you, that it is so beautiful?" The builder just smiles discreetly under his beard.