This issue of ERA21 was originally meant to focus on Zoological Gardens. As summarised in the introduction text, different impulses led to us shifting our field of interest away from these places of worldly entertainment of looking into limited animal enclosures. The abstract act of erasing boundaries between people and wild animals crossed the popular glass divides of zoo exhibits. Animals range free now, in their natural territories—though these are greatly diminished due to human activity. And ERA21 is looking at ways of expanding these territories again, physically as well as semantically. It strives for emancipation from the subordination to the anthropocentric approach to the environment and for the discovery of new ecologies of interspecies coexistence. As it turns out, rewilding doesn't have to end in regression, instead it can stimulate a fascinating transgression.

Petr Hájek is one of those architects who take the sound aspects very seriously in their work. Always focused on acoustics, ever since the first HŠH architects’ projects, he’s not afraid to have the building’s main conceptual idea guided by it. But recently his interest in sound and music peaked when he took to the stage with an experimental musical composition, as co‑author alongside notable musicians and conductors. Current projects, his students’ peculiar studio assignments, or composed architecture and urbanism were all things discussed in our conversation with Petr Hájek.

Unbelievably, nineteen years will soon pass since the first time ERA21 magazine focused on the relationship between architecture, music and sound. The 04/2004 issue was a collaboration with architect and musician Ivan Palacký, who became ERA21’s first ever guest editor and issue curator. Following his example, we still often invite experienced professionals with unique insight to help us develop an issue.

You have to collaborate with others when working in the city centre, despite many still being opposed to the idea. Someone or something will make you. There’s no point resisting, though it does happen. There is a point in enquiring, analysing, listening, finding competent people and sustainable solutions. All that sounds quite sensible and simple. But the truth is very different. The revitalisation of Čelakovského sady in Prague was successful in that it changed many things, cleared new ways through the snow, and also followed some paths already made by others.

What is unique about Danish architecture? What kind of history is it born from? What kind of future is waiting for it? Among current professionals in Denmark, there’s hardly anyone better to answer these questions than the Copenhagen-based philosopher Kristoffer Lindhardt Weiss. For years, he has been analysing and interpreting the architecture scene in Denmark for local and international audiences, while actually being an inextricable part of the scene himself.