The massive white building, which grew on the edge of the Nuselské údolí valley at the turn of the 1970s and 1980s, never grew close to the people of Prague. But no wonder. The Palace of Culture, which was opened on April 2, 1981 by President Gustáv Husák, is not full of beauty. In addition, as the first event, just a few days after the ribbon-cutting ceremony, the 16th Congress of the ruling Communist Party, which was then celebrating its 60th anniversary, welcomed it.

“Prague is receiving a cultural stand of such beauty and size that is few in Europe and around the world,” said Antonín Kapek, head of the Prague Communists, at the opening. The periodical again wrote about the “symbol of socialist Prague”. The people of Prague took such statements with a grain of salt and the building was given the unflattering nickname “Lidojem”, at best it was called “Pakul”. On the other hand, in mid-April 1981, 110,000 curious people did not hesitate to wait for an hour’s queues so that they could see the novelty of the Prague skyline from the inside.

Copies of a similar building

The congress center is not exceptional, according to the expert it is actually a copy of similar buildings, which was built in the mid-60s in Hamburg, West Germany. This was also admitted by one of the authors of the palace, Jaroslav Trávníček, who said years ago that he and his colleagues had consciously followed best practices. “It’s not a product of architecture, but let no one tell me it’s a bad concept,” Trávníček also defended his work.

The proposal from the Military Project Institute (VPÚ), according to which it was built, was not originally selected by the commission. At first, the work of the Project Institute of the Capital City of Prague was given priority. “But our victory was not expected, so other rounds were organized,” recalled the recently deceased architect Jan Bočan. “In order not to win, the chairman of the jury had to resign in the end,” said the architect, who signed the embassy projects in London and Stockholm, for example.

The reasons for influencing the competition at the time can probably be found in politics. “The soldiers were more acceptable to the party. The creators of the Palace of Culture were automatically expected to receive the Klement Gottwald Prize, and we weren’t even in the party. “It didn’t work without it then,” Bočan sighed. At the same time, however, he added that the forced continuation of the competition, despite the previously expected result, also had positive effects, as it forced the authors from VPÚ to improve their design.

The construction lasted 5 years

The building, which the government decided to build in February 1975, began to grow on the edge of the Nusel Valley in 1976 – it was completed in five years. The Congresses of the Communist Party, for which it was mainly intended, but in the end the Palace of Culture hosted only two, and after 1989 it was difficult to find another application. For several years, Prima TV was housed in a part of the palace (renamed the Prague Congress Center; KCP) in 1995, there was even a car shop on the ground floor and the musical Dracula was played in the main hall.

The meeting of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, which it hosted in September 2000 and which it was undergoing modernization, eventually provided a significant impetus for the building. Two years later, the highest representatives of the North Atlantic Alliance also met in the area designated for the communist rulers of Czechoslovakia. Reconstruction from the end of the 1990s, which cost three billion crowns, but still weighs on the KCP’s finances.

Despite the economic problems, however, the former Palace of Culture is not a dead building, it regularly hosts various congresses, and cultural performances are also held in its halls. The renovated Congress Hall can even be compared to the best concert halls in the world. Nevertheless, there are occasional voices calling for the demolition of a massive building; three years ago, even in the heated debate over Kaplický’s design of the new National Library building, the idea of ​​converting the Congress Center into a library arose.