As one of the consequences of this hard period of time, architects and also the public couldn’t follow the latest development of modern architecture.

 People lost their faith in architects. In the totalitarian regime, they mostly considered architects as creators of panel housing estates and other hideous buildings, says architect and a renowned historian of architecture Zdeněk Lukeš in our interview. Since the 1990's he has been working in Prague castle at the Conservation Department and since 2000 also at the Faculty of Architecture of TUL in Liberec. He has had numerous lectures, published a great amount of articles, several books on architecture and he also takes part in the preparation of many interesting exhibitions.

Is it possible, after not even twenty years, to evaluate new architecture which was created and is still being created after the year 1990?

This period of time can be divided into several phases. The development, however, was not simple. The most critical was the first half of 1990's. The construction of panel houses was gradually subsiding, we all knew it was wrong, yet at the same time it was not possible to stop it bang on 17th November and start building in a way usual in the rest of the world.  

Unfortunately, within the frame of this process, some sites were pulled down following the plans of the Communist era. Such sites would probably be revitalized in present times. This was for example the space in front of Vysočany railway station, where there used to be high-quality art nouveau and functional buildings. We did not manage to prevent the destruction of these buildings, but at least, the planned housing estate was not built there. For several years, only the wind was blowing around, which was good.  

The construction of panel houses was stopped in 1992 and the houses that are there today are of good quality. The place that has been created there has a good urban design. It is not just rows of panel houses. Some of the most valuable buildings have even been saved. Nonetheless, it took some time before the first high-quality buildings were built.

Was it the lack of courage, money or was there some other obstruction?

Under totalitarianism, all architects were in project institutions with hundreds of employees. The first step therefore was, that they had to get back to the system, which had been here during the First Republic and that is usual all over the world: they had to leave the institutions and found their own project studios. This was not easy and it took some time. It also appeared that a number of the older architects, who had been used to carrying out orders for all of their lives, found it hard to become independent. Few of this generation – e.g. Prager or Kotik – managed to run their own atelier, although, later on even these came across some problems. It was mostly the younger and middle aged generation who managed to assert themselves and have successful studios. Another problem was materials. There was nothing in the country. Everything had to be imported.  

This has changed quite quickly, hasn‘t it?

Construction companies were gradually created as well as shops with construction materials, there was competition, the process was quite unrestrained, some went bankrupt, yet in the end the situation became stable. This is what it was like until the middle of the 1990's.   Yet before that and in the process, the architecture was not very good, one of the reasons being the lack of quality material. Many buildings have already had to be renovated since then.

I talk about all this from the point of view of a person who has been in Prague Castle since 1990. We also had to struggle with the necessity to stop some very inconsiderate reconstructions, e.g. the reconstructions of the Southern Gardens, which were being carried out without taking into account the original Plecnik's conception.  On the contrary, we wanted the architects to make an exact reconstruction of what the gardens were like during the First Republic, we wanted them to use better quality materials and so forth. This was a lengthy process. People worked hard to learn new things, it was a long quest.

In which even the authors were probably finding themselves, since stylish houses are still quite rare…

 Architects were rather uncertain, because postmodernism was coming to an end in the world. Some examples of postmodernism appeared here as well, but it quickly turned into a trashy form. Mainly younger architects were turning to find some support in the First Republic, where the last heroic period of Czech architecture was functionalism. They tried to somehow continue the style and to create something similar, yet at the beginning they were not very good.

Another problem was the exact rules of housing development. This was the problem of individual Prague Town Halls and Prague City Hall, whose representatives let buildings to be built in some key pieces of land, without any precise rules. This was mostly during the time when the Mayor of Prague was Mr. Kondra. What I mean is for example Myslbek Palace in Na Příkopech or Hypobanka in Náměstí Republiky. Although these proposals had gone through competitions, I think that it would have been better to let the pieces of land be for some time and think what to build on them.   

However, these were mainly municipal lands, so houses should have been built there with more city-forming functions. What I mean is that for example and mainly Hypobanka is a place where except for a bar, there is nothing for people. It is a building which could have had many interesting possibilities. And the bank offered the city that there could be passageways, exhibition halls, shops… Prague refused. These were the mistakes of ignorance.

Another similar case was the hotel Four Seasons, where the regulation conditions were badly specified. It appeared, during the competition, that the proposals counted to a large matter, which would have disturbed the skyline. Fortunately the competition was cancelled and new regulation conditions had to be stipulated. I was also called in to judge the matter. The Canadians were not exactly happy about the fact that all of a sudden we were pushing them to reduce the capacity to one half, but they accepted in the end.

This hotel is one of recent buildings that lie in the historical centre of the city. This makes it for many a very delicate topic. Where do you think the borderline is which on one hand prevents the city to become an antique open-air museum and on the other hand makes sure that the historical centre will not be destroyed by some modern absurdities?

I have to say this: I am not one of those who think that nothing should be built in such places or that the new buildings should be copies of the old ones with a fake facade. Prague would not deserve this and it is wrong in principle. Every era brought about its part in the mosaic of Prague's architecture and I don't see why we should now become afraid and stop building. That is provided we want to have a normal, living metropolis, which serves many different purposes and where people feel good and where they want to live.

Sure there is another option. We can say that the centre will be one big museum and there will be no people living there, just some open-air museums…This is probably not what we want, is it? This is why contemporary architecture should definitely have its place in the historical centre. It is, however, a big commitment, since in Prague the concentration of monuments from different epochs is enormous, as nowhere else in the world.  

If there are other significant historical cities, they are for the most dominated by one historical style. For instance, if you go to Toledo, you can see an ancient town, however, all the buildings come from the same period of time. This is why the tendency for the new buildings there is to conform with the style. Yet, this does not apply to Prague. Prague is phenomenal in the sense that there are buildings from the Romanesque style until now and they form a very varied mosaic. These styles are interwoven, which is unique. There was never enough money as in Paris, Vienna, London or Berlin to demolish whole city quarters and build up new ones. Apart from the demolition of Josefov and Podskalí, of course. But even there remained some original buildings.

Nonetheless there are many examples of modern architecture mingling with historical. Let's take Basel. There is an almost cosmic house built in the historical centre right   between two Renaissance buildings and it is not disruptive at all.

The trouble is that people here are very conservative and they are not used to the most recent architecture, which is also represented by Kaplický's library. Such buildings were not built here because of the abhorrent totalitarian regime, which broke off all connections with abroad. In 1970's and 80's, when people practically could not travel, we met with friends in our flat for unofficial seminars. And if one of us managed to make a trip abroad, we would then meet in our flat. Someone for example took pictures of La Defense in Paris, someone brought books, etc.

 These were very hard times, which among other things meant thatarchitects and also the public didn't know the latest development of modern architecture. People lost their faith in architects. In the totalitarian regime, they mostly considered architects as creators of panel housing estates and other hideous buildings. This all lead to the fact that people stopped commissioning projects from architects and they gave them to civil engineers or they chose a standardized catalogue houses. This is how most of the so called satelite towns emerged.

But at some stage, we have to start with quality architecture, event if it is shocking, don't we?¨

Architects must gradually build up their prestige. This means that the contact with the development in the world must be better, we need to organize international competitions and commission works from foreign architects… remember, for instance, what caused Tančící Dům (The Dancing House) by Frank Gerhy. From today's point of view and even in the eyes of expert public the arguments against it seem almost ridiculous: it doesn't suit the location, the whole block will overbalance to one side, etc. People were shocked, however, they got very quickly used to the building very quickly.

The need for foreign architects is therefore obvious. What so far the top architects have built in Prague is worthy of praise it. Let's take Jean Nouvel and Zlatý Anděl (Golden Angel), Ricardo Bofill and Corso Karlin, which is an example that it is possible to preserve a valuable historical facade and to build in some high-tech architecture. Or the architectonic studio Kohn Pedersen Fox Associates, originally American, today with subsidiaries all over the world. They mainly construct skyscrapers, today e.g. in Shanghai. Here, they designed Danube House – a beautiful palace in Karlín. This shows that there is nothing to fear.

After all, Gehry's Dancing House is today on almost every foreign guide to Prague. In the same way, other world-famous names are coming and hopefully will continue coming – Richard Meier, who is giving a new face to the highest building in Pankrác, the former Radio Station – and many other will come. Many of them just for a visit, I have already given guided tours around the Castle for dozens of them. Presently the famous Japanese architect Fujimori is planning his visit.

Maybe some Czech the architects do not exactly welcome all these visits?

One of my colleague architects, who I esteem most of the time, wrote a letter at the beginning of the 1990's saying something like: do not invite foreign architects to Prague. It must only be Czechs who design buildings in Prague, etc. This is however nonsense. After all, almost everything here in Prague Castle was built by foreigners. The cathedral was started by a Frenchman Matthias of Arras, his work was then continued by a German Parler, Paolo de la Stella, the author of The Belvedere was Italian, Pacassi, who rebuilt the new palace for Maria Theresia was Austrian and this went on during the First Republic: Masaryk invited   Plecnik who was Slovenian.

We, for example, boast about Muller's villa, which I hope will be added to the UNESCO World Heritage List. It is a house built by Adolf Loos, a German from Brno with a Czechoslovakian passport. For that matter he considered himself a globetrotter. The question of foreign architects is therefore not significant at all and I believe, that their presence here is normal and legitimate. And it is also good competition for our architects who then have the opportunity to compare themselves with others. After all many of those foreign architects invite Czech architects to cooperate with them: Gehry cooperated with Milunic, Kohn Pederesen Fox with the studio A.D.N.S., Myslbek was built through the cooperation of Czech architects Holzel and Kerel with the Frenchman Parrent...

So far we have talked about public buildings. How about residential buildings? Most people were for a long time disgusted with panel houses, however the idea of one building with more flats is not so bad and many people now buy flats in new residential complexes. One of the first new residential complexes was constructed in Červený Vrch. At present, the complex Central Park in Prague 3 is being finished. In the meantime, there have been built many other complexes of such kind. Is there a future for this type of housing?

The first buildings, which started to be built after the year 1990, were bank palaces, since banks were rich and their expansion was fast. Then came administrative buildings followed by the old new topic of family houses. Those, who wanted to have a good house hired good architects. Yet, apart from that, many catalogue houses were built and a lot of satellite towns, where unfortunately the communities often changed the ground plan and overcrowded the locality. Then came the time of schools and other buildings.

One topic, however, stayed for a long time a taboo – and this was the topic of block of flats. Architects practically did not design such buildings at all. Fortunately the situation has rapidly changed over the last few years, because not everybody can live in a family house or wants to live somewhere in a satellite town outside Prague and commute every day. Blocks of flats are an important solution in Prague. Prague has a lot of free plots of land surrounding the city centre. These are whole areas which can be used for residential buildings, some of them are already being used: for example in Holešovice, in the place of former docks, or vast spaces in Karlín, where used to be heavy industry, in Vysočany, in Libeň. This also include ecological possibilities. It is not possible anymore to make e.g. boilers or trams in the centre of Prague. This is why there are huge industrial zones, which offer possibilities of new buildings or possiblities to transform the old industrial buildings, which is e.g. successfully happening in Karlin. Many people are happy to live in a former factory or there can also be design centres and so on. This is a very good trend and the possibilities are immense.

Recently I have been walking in the area of farthermost Bubeneč and Podbaba. There are many run-down buildings. Factories, warehouses. If you imagine, that there right beside the Vltava could be residential buildings, it is magnificent. However, the buildings should be well designed.

However, the sewerage plant could be a problem in Podbaba, as there is often an unpleasant smell being emitted from it. It is hard to imagine, that someone will buy an expensive flat in a locality where it is not possible to open a window.

This is all a question of the market. Either there can be some social housing, which does not mean that it should be badly designed, or there will be ordinary apartments, however their price will be lower. Or the big investors would have to put the sewerage plant under pressure to take such measures, that the smell would not drift away from it, or possibly to relocate the plant. Although that would obviously be hard

You mentioned social housing?

The question of social housing has been neglected, even though every town supports their construction. During the First Republic it was a duty to build in each quarter at least a few of such buildings. Even in Malá Strana, several such houses were built. There was a special division for it at the building office in which many great architects worked, such as Linhart, Fryda, Rosolek... Today we owe this question a lot.

I suppose that there are many more topics waiting for the city and architects?        

One of the important topics is the transport system in Prague, as the current one is collapsing. This needs to be sorted out very quickly. I read again, that in the northern part of the city – in Suchdol – people are protesting against the construction of the city bypass. This will drag on for many years and it will again slow the project down. Yet, if the whole system is not finished, the situation in Prague will be bad. 

A related topic is parking, which personally bothers me a lot. The city should have built underground car parks a long time ago or it should have been done by private investors, which would get some subsidies from the city. I know, that there are many people who would prefer to park their cars underground, although it would be more expensive. But there is no supply to satisfy the demand. On the other hand, very valuable pieces of land are used as car parks in the city centre and it literally kills the atmosphere of the place. When I was a young boy, The Old Town Square was a big car park. Today it would be a horror. To some extent, the problem has been solved in Senovážné Square, yet, for example, Malostranske square, Valdštejnské Square, Anenské Square, Pohořelec…they are basically car depots.  

I have just seen some studies of solutions to this problem at Prague City Hall. I have to say that, although we had a lot of objections and remarks to it, it is finally a way to make things right. It was , for example, found out that there does not need to be any Senate and Parliament car park in Valdštejnské Square, because they have sufficient space in the underground car park which they had built for a lot of money. In such case, for instance a fountain can be built in the square which would make it a beautiful place.

We must not omit one more topic, which always resounds the loud of people.  It is the famous Prague skyline. I have the feeling that every time an unusual   building is being considered, people start using the Prague skyline as an argument?


I suppose you mean the future library. However, as far as Kaplicky is concerned, we already know, that looking from the city centre, the building will practically not be seen, which means that this is not a problem. People also mention the skyline in connection with Pankrác. I always say that it was a mistake in 1960's to build several  high-rise buildings in there. But it was such a proud period of time, when nobody really considered the context and the visibility at that time was so bad, due to air pollution, that the buildings could hardly be seen from afar. 

The present situation is completely different. Nonetheless, today, nobody will pull these buildings down. And the composition is unfinished, since some more buildings were planned to be constructed there. Therefore it is necessary to somehow finish the whole area. This is planned to be done with two more buildings. At the same time some sort of a socle will be built there from underneath which will optically lower the buildings. The buildings there are not skyscrapers, they are more so high-rise buildings. I think that the planned compositions are alright. Now it is more important to say where in Prague is possible to build high-rise buildings and where not. Nobody has ever really examined this yet.

That it why it is good that the UNESCO exerted some pressure to make a study of it. The study has been created – the author is the studio Causa – and it is great. In the process of creation of the study it looked at some development areas in Prague, where it would be possible to construct high-rise buildings. Then, by means of a computer, simulations of buildings with different number of floors – seven, ten, fifteen and twenty five – were simulated in such a way to see what the buildings could look like in the given area.

There are approximately fifty development areas, so a lot of variants were created. The next phase of the study was that different views from all possible view points were entered into the computer: Letná, Hradčany, Petřín, and many others – Vítkov, Prague Television Tower in Žižkov, Riegrovy Sady, and even much more distant places, and again hundreds if not thousands of different variants were created. All this is now saved on the computer, so if someone wants to build a high-rise building, let's say a twenty floor high building in Modřany, we will look at the computer and will find out how such a building would look from those important view points.  So it is possible that suddenly it will show that the building would not obstruct anything in the same way as for example the palace Kovo in Holešovice or Aritma in Vokovice, which are both very high buildings but they do not disrupt the skyline. And on the contrary, it could be found out that something which might at the first sight seem very far from the city centre can be seen from one of the points when looking at Hradčany.  

Architects, conservationists and urbanists can enter a planned building into this program and they come into a conclusion that the given place is o.k., that there is no problem or on the contrary that the building would significantly interfere with the area…This thing will definitely be a great help.

Lately, in almost every sphere, we can see eco-friendly tendencies, materials that are used are those that do not harm the environment. Where do we stand in this respect? Are current constructions taking into account such a view?

More and more. This is what happens all over the world. It is possible to build a whole house of glass, yet still it is very well insulated and it has very good sound protection properties. For example the administrative complex along the motorway to Brno is being build in a similar way. In front of it is some sort of treillage intergrown with plants. Of course it depends on whether the people working there like it. Local clerks are not used to big offices, where there are a

some forty people, they are not used to air conditioning, so they complain among other things about some health problems. But it appears that it is a generation matter rather than anything else because young people welcome such surroundings.

How about green roofs and greenery on buildings in general?

The tendencies that emerge in the world gradually emerge in our country as well. These are all these ecological buildings, which are expensive to build, but the maintenance costs of which are very low and it is environmentally friendly, such as underground bungalows. The thing is, what is realizable in our surroundings. For instance, when functionalism came to life, Le Corbusier set up some principles and one of them was that houses as concrete skeletons would be elevated above the ground the garden would be under them. However, this did not prove effective in our climate in the same way as Le Corbusier's roof terraces did not work here, because people at that time could not make a roof that would not be leaking. Today such thing is not a problem.