Free entry
The exhibition Two of Prague: The City from a Bird’s Eye View is open to the public free of charge at CAMP from March 3 to 29, 2020. Anyone can visit it from 9 am to 9 pm, every day except Monday.

According to the organizers, there are noticeable differences in comparing the map from the early 19th century with the current ones, which demonstrate the later development of industrial suburbs such as Karlín, Smíchov, Libeň or the establishment of the Malešice-Hostivař industrial area and a number of housing estates.

The photographs show the development of the South City, which has become a symbol of Czechoslovak settlements. Once a former picturesque village. The Southwest City housing estate was established in the 1970s and has already been instructed by the mistakes that occurred during the construction of the South City. Maps from 1869 and 1945 again show visitors how the railway affected the development of Prague.

“Every Praguer can look for a street or a place that interests him at the exhibition. All you have to do is use it for our keyboard and mouse location, choose a specific location and period and compare it with another historical era. All this will then be possible to observe on the panoramic twenty-five-meter walls in the overlapping layers of the two maps. At the same time, other map applications will be seen on the screens, which the Institute of Development Planning is currently pursuing, ”explains Ondřej Boháč, Director of the Municipal Institute of City Planning and Development (IPR Prague).

Eden as a city theme park

An interesting chapter is the survey of places that succumbed to the bombing of American aircraft in February 1945. The raids hit over two and a half thousand Prague houses, the most destroyed was the area around Palacky and Charles Square or Vinohrady Avenue. “By comparing the map from 1945 and 1975, everyone will find out how the city coped with the tragedy, how it grew later and how, for example, the Emmaus Monastery or the aforementioned Charles Square was built,” the CAMP press release said.

At the Prague Two exhibition from a bird’s eye view, they can visit maps showing the transformation of the territory of today’s Karlín, where, in addition to the change in the character of Rohan Island, the shift and significant regulation of the Vltava riverbed can also be seen. The difference is also evident in the maps of Vršovice from 1938 and 1953, especially around the area of ​​today’s Eden Stadium, which in the past served as a city amusement park.

“Paradoxically, today we perceive the smooth bed of the Vltava as unchanging, as something that has always looked like this. But if we look at the old maps, we can see clearly how in the past the river made its way wildly, which it itself recognized was appropriate or possible, and how significantly the riverbed was later regulated. It is also beautiful to see how the land of the district has changed, for example between the individual Holešovice and Karlín, “describes the architecture historian Martina Koukalová from IPR Prague.

As on Tuesday, Koukalová will give a lecture at CAMP on Wednesday, March 11, entitled The Development of Prague on Maps. Those interested can learn how the individual urban plans and aerial photographs for the exhibition were created. Koukalová will also show such specific places where Prague has changed the most in 200 years.