Prague is a beautiful city of one hundred spires, full of nice nooks and crannies and primarily a city with an enormous „genius loci“. To put it in a more modern language, it is a place with a lot of charm and a great atmosphere. Christian Norberg Schulz, an eminent theoretician and historian of architecture listed Prague amongst the three most interesting cities in the world beside Rome and Khartoum.
Its location in the double meander of the river, in a hilly landscape and between its two castles is truly unique. This is why the city has been a challenge for architects both in the past and at present.
The cycle Gloss of Prague’s Architecture which we will be continuously publishing on this website, will deal with contemporary architecture built after the Velvet Revolution. We will write about both successful and unsuccessful architecture, however, our main focus will be on works that have sprung up everywhere around us. We will strive to bring closer contemporary realizations on different scales from S to XL, from a nice bench in a park to big architectural complexes. We will not be governed by continuity in time, but more so by geographical and typological features.
The geographical features simply determine the position of buildings in the city, where whole districts have been completely rebuilt, such as Karlin or a large part of Smichov. Typological features allow us to compare realizations of one building type on different locations, e.g. housing construction, administration, shopping centres or e.g. a Prague’s speciality – city arcades and passage ways.
Another criterium on which we might base the selection of buildings for our cycle could be the architect’s personality, as a great number of architectural celebrities have worked in our city in the last fifteen years whether it has been with bigger or smaller success, devoutness and zeal. We will certainly find here different realizations by most of our leading architects of all contemporary generations.
In short, we have enough to write about so we will try. We hope that we will also manage to bring to your attention small features, that you normally wouldn’t even notice without being told about them and yet they can represent very good architecture following the motto „ simplicity means strength.
We live in a time where a great many things compete for our attention. This is why we would like to draw your attention to some of them and point out why some of them were not so successful and ended up the way they did.
Ing. Arch. Filip Soukup
Articles within the field
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3. 7. 2008
New Karlín – A Lot of High Quality Architecture in One Place
Since my childhood, Karlín (together with Smíchov) signified to me a dirty quarter with a lot of romantic secluded places à la Stínadla. The first workers quarter which sprang up behind the walls of Prague, is today, thanks to its location and the havoc caused by the floods, an ideal place for construction for new buildings. And that is exactly what is happening. There is mass construction going on and most of the time, the new or newly reconstructed buildings are of a very high quality.
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23. 6. 2008
Self-evident Things that are not Self-evident at all
Forces of habit cannot be ignored. When a person walks repeatedly along the same routes, corners, and the same pavements, they seem not to register many things at all even though they can be very interesting and beautiful. We mean the smaller scale city architecture such as cobble stones, benches, litter bins, fountains, bollards, lights, greenery, statues, tram stops, stalls and footbridges. In short, we are talking about the cities architectural accessories.
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23. 6. 2008
Two Interesting Office Sites
The departure of communism and the arrival of western life styles with its resulting growth required business administration in both state and private companies thereby creating a big demand in office space. In the wild nineties this was being solved by reconstructions of existing office buildings or by the erection of new monstrosities and noncreative office sites.
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Nový Smíchov and Palác Flora: two variations on the same theme
Shopping Centres, as they are known today, originated in the USA in the 1950s. The notion of constructing air-conditioned buildings in the desert, with “streets” where people could easily spend the whole day soon became widespread. These centres, with entertainment for children and adults and a huge range of shops offering to lighten the customer’s purse, was a very successful idea and caught on quickly.During the communist era we longed for such dreams of capitalism, but nowadays we see them as a standard facility of urban life.
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Ing. arch. Filip Soukup
- 31. January 2010
- 31. January 2010
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