The Graz exhibition “Approximate Line of Action” re‑stages and adapts a show first presented at fjk3 – Contemporary Art Space, Vienna, selecting works by Hermann Czech from the 1960s to the present, including theoretical projects. The display—developed collaboratively by like‑minded architects and curators—reflects Czech’s practice: meticulously planned yet open to the unexpected and the everyday, with exhibition architecture as a central medium. Czech was personally involved in the installation; the curator, Eva Kuß, is both a long‑time expert on his work and a practicing architect whose office, coabitare, designed the fjk3 version according to the principle that “exhibited objects react to the space and transform it.” The HDA’s exhibition space, redesigned in 2006 by ifau and Jesko Fezer, transformed a Baroque palais into a venue open to appropriation—closely aligned with Czech’s principle of “mannerism,” emphasizing participation and spatial experience.

In Graz, vaulted ceilings, eclectic lighting, brick‑textured podiums, and opposing glazed entrances create a proper field for Czech’s objects such as a floor lamp and a green curved sofa from his Viennese cafés alongside wooden vitrines that recall his winter glazing at the Vienna State Opera. The architecture recedes into a quiet, non‑discursive background that heightens visitors’ phenomenological attention and interaction—an approach championed by both Czech and ifau. Yet this background is exacting: it foregrounds subtle spatial sensibilities and, as Czech argued in his 1971 manifesto “Don’t panic!,” reveals architecture as simultaneously overvalued discursively and undervalued as experiential spatial language. The show persuasively advances that claim, integrating material with method, exhibition design with architecture, theory with practice, and visitors’ spatial experience with the exhibition’s architectural method. This is symbolized by the paired armchair, which attunes sitters to one another, spatially organizing their dialogue and structuring the exhibition space.

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