Prádelna / Rooftop laundry

Lokace: Praha

“Siegfried nám ukázal svou báseň Incomplete Sentence čerstvě publikovanou v B O D Y magazine. Nejlépe prý vystihuje jeho náladu, lépe než jakékoliv zadání. Je lehce podzimní, lehce melancholická. Poklad na staroměstské půdě bývalé prádelny jsme viděli hned, Josefov přede dveřmi, pět pater schodů místo návštěvy tělocvičny, omítka nasáklá stoletím opakované očisty. Pro básnický atelier nemůže být lepší místo. Hlavním cílem projektu je vytvoření komfortního bydlení, a zároveň maximální zachování historických kvalit. Proto jsme vše museli vymyslet tak, abychom udrželi neopakovatelnou náladu celého prostoru a zařídili pohodlné psaní, nebo občasné přespání.”

Architekt:
COLL COLL (Markéta Součková, Krištof Hanzlík, Eliška Martínková, Vavřinec Veselý, Martin Gaberle) – www.collaborativecollective.cc
Model:
Siegfried Mortkowitz 

Přestavba je součástí projektu The Emerald by Urbanium Concept – www.the-emerald-prague.com

INCOMPLETE SENTENCE

sometimes at night, just before I turn off the lights
and shut myself into the night, before I have read
that magazine piece about an eccentric artist
working on an exact replica of the entire world
or googled the symptoms of some rare fatal disease,
just to be sure I am still immortal,
before I have checked on the whereabouts
of the cat, to see if he has climbed
into that small nook under the sink
when the trash bin was open
or has not been locked out on the balcony,
but after I have smoked my last cigarette and
emptied the last bottle of wine and
made a mental note to buy more wine soon,
after I have checked on my sleeping son, to make sure
he is still breathing, though he always is,
after I have locked the front door,
after I have taken out my false teeth
and brushed the real ones,
after I have contemplated my half-toothless grin in the mirror
and compared it, favorably, to a baboon’s butt,
after I have examined the night for stars and found none,
just a sheet of ammoniac light plastered against the sky
by the gaseous metropolis in which I now live,
and after I have asked myself again
if it would not be better to live somewhere else,
anywhere else,
after I have decided not to think about tomorrow
because there is always a tomorrow
until there isn’t,
and after I remembered, for no reason at all,
that night we parked my old Rambler in a field
of wildflowers not far from where you now live
and a storm erupted that seized us in its violent fist,
and we clung to each other for dear life
as all lovers do –
o Christ, all the years that have passed
since the days we spent inside each other’s skin
in a single night’s dream.

SIEGFRIED MORTKOWITZ
works as a free-lance journalist and lives in Prague.