Bazaar

Understanding a Bazaar

Taking an etymological look at the word "bazaar", one would be surprised at the varied facts about its origin. Bazaar is actually a type of market that was evidently established while several people gathered to exchange their surplus goods. In other words, a bazaar is a place for the exchange of merchandise, foodstuffs and services between two or more people. Activity such as bargaining, selling, 

Yet, bazaar has an expanded definition. It is a network of bargains between salespeople and customers. To put it in a nutshell, a bazaar can be clearly defined as the organized concentration of a current of exchanges by an assembly of salesmen and customers at a certain venue, fostering contacts to exchange goods and services.

Presently, the word bazaar has grown to cover any place of exchange. But for a Persian reader, the word connotes a long narrow roofed labyrinth, featured by shops and caravansaries on both sides. 

Characteristic of a Bazaar

It becomes a central market for a city, often becoming covered/ indoor as years went by

• long and narrow
• hierarchy avenues
• central courtyard
• corridors
• alleys
• halls
• intersections
• major chamber and nodes

Cultures of Prague

Customs & Tradition

• derived from the influence of the bohemian culture ( practice and unconventional lifestyle, often in the company of like minded people, involving musical, artistic and literary pursuits)
• very vibrant and colourful (full of life)
• each season or rather each month has something in store

Celebration & Festival 


The Day of Recovery of the Independent Czech State_January 1. 
Every year this is celebrated together with New Year's Day. People recall the establishment of the independent Czech Republic and the separation of Czechoslovakia at the turn of 1992 and 1993.

Hromnice _February 2. 

The day of Hromnice (pronounced HROM-nyi-tseh) is a significant day for the Czechs owing to its weather-related folklore. It approximately marks the middle of winter and is linked to dozens of weather-related proverbs and predictions. According to the Czech, the weather on Hromnice is an indication of how long the winter will linger.

Liberation Day_May 8. 

Annually, people celebrate this day in memory of May 8, 1945, when Czechoslovakia, until that time occupied by Germany, was set free by American and Russian military units. Thus, finished one of the worst and most destructive modern wars in the history of Europe.

The Day of Slavonic Apostles Cyril and Methodius _July 5. 
This day celebrates the coming of Slavonic Apostles Cyril and Methodius, who brought Christianity to the territory of today´s Czech Republic in about the year 863, and some other foundations of European culture, for example, a new type of writing.

Jan Hus Day _July 6. 
This day marks one sad moment in Czech history. In 1415, Jan Hus, a Czech religious thinker, philosopher and reformer of the Catholic Church and a priest, was burned for his ideas in the Constance.

Day of Czech Statehood _September 28. 
It is one related to the tradition of Christianity and the tradition of Saint Wenceslas. On that day, Saint Wenceslas, the monarch and future patron of the Bohemian nation, was murdered by his brother Boleslav in Stará Boleslav. Every year there is a Saint Wenceslas pilgrimage organized at this place, and at Prague Castle the president awards Saint Wenceslas medals to individuals who contributed to the Czech statehood.

The Day of Establishment of the Independent Czechoslovak Republic_October 28. 
On this day each year, the president of the republic, together with eminent state officers, places bunches of flowers on the grave of the first president and the leader of foreign revolt at the time of World War I, Tomáš G. Masaryk, at the castle in Lány, and also at the monument in Vítkov. In the evening of this day, the president honors eminent personalities of cultural and social life.

Struggle for Freedom and Democracy Day_November 17. 
On this day in 1939, a student demonstration against the Nazi occupation was organized, during which a student, Jan Opletal, was shot. Right after that, universities were closed and Nazis persecuted and executed more students. In 1989, a students' reminder of this incident was permitted by the communist authorities and this event turned into an open anti-communist demonstration on the National Avenue in Prague. This was strictly suppressed by police, but marked the beginning of the Czech Republic .

The Burning of the Witches_April 30.
The Burning of the Witches” is a weird Czech practice that bids a final farewell to winter and can still be witnessed in many villages across the country. As a part of the custom, Czechs get together on the evening of April 30 to build a bonfire and prepare an effigy of the witch that kept winter around so long.

St. Joseph's Day
The Czech St. Joseph's Day is a more restrained adaptation of the Irish St. Patrick's Day and is celebrated around the same time in March every year. In fact, Josef is among the most common of Czech names and generates annual celebrations around the nation.

Easter
Easter in Prague is a time of enjoyment. Different villages and regions in the country have their own varied Easter customs and traditions. The main Easter holiday in Prague is the Easter Monday. Boys and men visit their friends in the morning and carry pomlazkas with them. Pomlazkas are braided willow sticks with colored ribbons tied at the ends. They chase and lightly whip the females wherever they visit. In return the boys get colored eggs from girls and women. The custom was meant to assure fertility.

The Day of Love_May 1. 
In the Czech Republic, this day is devoted to lovers and the Czech romantic ‘poet of love’ Karel Hynek Mácha. On this day, couples get together at the statue of Karel Hynek in Prague's Petřín Park where they lay flowers and spend a few moments. The park is predominantly a romantic place in May when its cherry trees are in bloom.

St. Nicholas Tradition _December 5
The eve of St. Nicholas is especially fun-filled in Prague. On this day, parents bring their children to the Old Town Square where one can see the tradition in full swing roughly between 5 pm and 8 pm. Children also receive St. Nicholas presents from their parents and relatives. Gifts like sweets and chocolates can be put into a stocking and hidden somewhere in the child's room.

Christmas_December 24. 
For most Czechs, December 24 (Štědrý den) is the most pleasurable day of Christmas holidays. Its Czech name literally means "Generous Day", probably for the wealth of food that has traditionally been served for Christmas dinner.


Local Food and Cuisine

Dumpling
It mostly consists of pork or beef meat with sauce and a side dish, the most common and liked being dumplings. Dumplings (“knedliky”) are the Czech traditional side dish made from wheat or potato flour, boiled in water as a roll and then sliced and served hot.

Soup
The most appreciated Czech soupsare onion and garlic soup , but the speciality for Christmas is the fish soup, made out of Carp, the Czech traditional Christmas delicacy. Also very tasty is Goulash Soup, a spicy thick (creamy) soup, served with brown bread.




Salads
Czech salads contain delicious mayonnaise or dressing-sauce.







Desert Pancake
Famous are the Czech Pancakes, filled with ice-cream, jam or fruits and coated in whipped-cream, almonds or sugar.








Beer is a delicacy







Arts and Craft

Pottery making

Music and Dance

Traditional folk dance

Initial Brief

" Experience Prague culture, food, music through the gracious hospitality of a wide variety of traders at the St. Anna's church"

Performance Genre

I want to explore the idea of a market place where activities such as trading, bargaining and auctioning takes place in one platform. It would act as a place for locals and tourist to experience the diverse and unique culture of Prague and promote social interaction with one another.

Initial Idea

For this performance i looked into the idea of a Cultural Bazaar. Bazaar is a permanent merchandising area, marketplace, or street of shops where goods and services are exchanged or sold.

    Case Studies
                   1.  The grand bazaar, Istanbul
                   2.  Petaling street, Malaysia 
                   3.  Chinatown, San Francisco, USA 


Program 

• the bazaar would be a temporary installation 
• it would act as an International Trade Market once a year in Prague 
• it will provide a place for trader all over Prague, to come together to show off their trading skills
• it would also generate trading activities to attract tourist and locals
•  it would demonstrate the daily life culture, rituals and customs as well as architecture of Prague 

Performers 
The traders themselves


Performance
The trading activity such as selling, buying, bargaining and also auctioning 

Participants
Those engaging themselves in the trading activity such as:

• selling
• buying
• auctioning
• bargaining

Audience

The passer by, visitors , tourist and many others

Site: St Anna' s Church

Location: Zlata Street ( entrance from Liliova' Street) Prague's Old Town - foot of the Charles  Bridge

site location

exterior facade

Style: Gothic Architecture (Luxembourg period)             

Period: Built between 1313 - 1330


Ownership: Dominican Convent

Description: St. Anna's is an important landmark in the cultural heritage of Prague and is a protected building. It was originally built as a gothic church, and has since been adapted to other uses. It is now used as a cultural center in Prague, which is owned by The National Theater, and is operated under the title of 'Prague Crossroads' by The Dagmar and Vaclav Havel Foundation VIZE 97, to promote the crossroads of different cultural influences, intersecting in Prague over the centuries.

Background: In 1782, St. Ann’s Church became one of many Catholic structures converted to secular use by the Emperor Joseph II as part of his reformation program. Over the last 200 years it was used as an industrial building that housed printing machinery and then as a warehouse. Three floors were installed within to tailor the church to its new function, blocking the vault from view, damaging murals, and disrupting the timber configuration from the 1730s. An unsound arch collapsed in the early 1880s and no reconstruction was attempted until 1989, when insensitive renovations removed pieces of the original Gothic truss.

Construction: Twice as high as it is broad and perfectly symmetrical, timber roofing, gothic truss system, brick gothic facade

Reconstruction: The church was transformed into a functioning community center, becoming a part of the Prague Crossroads Program to promote cultural dialogue. St. Ann’s is now the home of that organization and functions as a performance space. The 400 seated guests for concerts, lectures, and public forums can look up and see the original Gothic nave.However, the reconstruction of the Prague Crossroads is still ongoing. In recent years, for example, the restorers who were working on the renovation of the unique frescoes in the former church succeeded in finding unrivaled paintings from the 14th century of exceptional artistic quality and scope which are comparable to similar works at Karlštejn or in St. Vitus’ Cathedral. Its is now a unique cultural space that is created to provide a comfort comparable to other similarly oriented spaces. British architect of Czech origin, Eva Jiřičná, who is the author of the architectural solution, has played a significant part in this work. The place where an altar painting used to be now holds a work by the well-known Czech painter Adriena Šimotová entitled "Ecstatic Figure". Artists whose works also shaped the interior of the Prague Crossroads include Kurt Gebauer and Bořek Šípek.

gothic truss system

nave

Interior of Saint Anna's     

Gropius Total Theater Animation

Total Theater animation

Total Theater

Total Theater, 1927

In 1927, Gropius was asked by the director Erwin Piscator, one of the most radical protagonist of modern theater to join him in developing a new type of theater. Piscator was searching for possibilities of creating  a multi functional theater building, "a machine or an apparatus" in which every contemporary option for staging play, including the use of extensive multimedia strategies, would be available to him in realizing the his vision of theater political agitation

Concept Idea
" The contemporary theater architects should set himself the aim to create a great keyboard of light and space, so objective and adaptable in character it would respond to any imaginable vision of a stage director: flexible building, capable of transforming and refreshing the mind by its spatial impact alone"

 Gropius

The theater

• reject hierarchical seating of audience
• abolish the division between stage and stall
• action on the stage must be entirely participated in by the audience

Gropius looked into the idea of the "3 Basic Stage Form"

1. Central Arena - where the plays unfold itself 3-dimensionally while spectators folds around concentrically
2. Greek Proscenium Theater - protruding platforms around which the audience is seated in a concentric half circles. the play is set up against the fixed background
3. Present Theater - the play is pulled back altogether behind the curtain

For Gropius the strongest means of the theater was to make the spectator participate in the play.The issues he had with these stages was the spatial separation of the auditorium and the stage that had  failed to draw the spectators physically into the play.



Plan
The plan of the theater was based on an elliptical floor plan to which the rectangular stage building was attached horizontally. The elliptical auditorium with its escalating rows of seats was reflected in the external form of the building. It was covered by a dome like ceiling. The 2000 seats are disposed in a form of an amphitheater.

floor plan and section

This theater provides a stage in arena form, a proscenium and a back stage, that was divided into the 3 part of the basic stage form. by incorporating 2 rotary movements.

• 1st movement is on the circular stage turning on itself
• 2nd movement is  part of the auditorium that is also circular and included the stage itself. This is when the stage was no longer at the apex of the ellipse but almost in the center recreating the old form amphitheater  (arena stage)

By rotationg, switching and sinking the auditorium floor and stage, a total and spatially dramatic experience could be created, that would integrate the audience directly onto the stage. The intention was to suspend the boundaries between the stage and the space occupied by the audience.

deep stage

proscenium stage

arena stage

Scenes are projected on 12 screens placed between the 12 main column supporting the structure.This was intended to offer unlimited staging possibilities.The intermediate space between the auditorium and the outer skin, which was separated from the interior space by the systems of support (columns) was for access and passage way

sectional perspective showing the 12 columns

Gropius Design Philosophy

"The Modern society must entrust new task and new possibilities to the theater. It was must no longer be a mere sideshow to distract the lower classes from responsible activity. Still less was it for the kind of performance with an 18th century elite had envisaged when it built its theaters in hierarchical term (stalls, circles,boxes). On the contrary, the theater must revive sensibility, its must be an active spiritual force, with which man, worn by industrial labor, recharged his own vital processes; in the end, it was a much needed school for the mind. In other words, its was a theater for all, taking its form from all the interest and the center of which it stood, and becoming a complete theater"

Walter Gropius