in conversation with the past and present:
de fenestra: prologue
case study: apartment design in historical contexts
Project information:
Project type: interior design/ restauration
Project status: ongoing
Area: 75 m²
Location: Poland, Wroclaw
Defenestration
(from Modern Latin fenestra) is the act of throwing someone out of a window. The term was coined around the time of an incident in Prague Castle in the year 1618 which became the spark that started the Thirty Years’ War. This was done in “good Bohemian style”, referring to the defenestration which had occurred in Prague’s City Hall almost 200 years earlier (July 1419), which also on that occasion led to the Hussite war. The word comes from the New Latin de- (down from) and fenestra (window or opening).
By extension, the term is also used to describe the forcible or peremptory removal of an adversary.
deFenestra is a series of projects and studies, researching the forgotten layers of urban settlements.
The spaces we live in are always rising in historical and contemporary contexts, influenced by economical, political and sociological conditions. They are always the result of complicated compromises.
The starting point of deFenestra is the city of Wroclaw, in the south-west of Poland.
Taken the long and uneasy history of the city in consideration, the urban structure needed to adapt many times.
deFenestra concentrates on the morphology of cities, and researches the process of erasing parts of cities from the collective memory.
The focus of deFenestra stays global.
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