Prague as you don’t know it. Go to a festival of places you won’t get anywhere else
Architecture for everyone. With this subtitle, the London Open House Festival was originally created in 1992. Today, it behaves in fifty cities on five continents, whose founder Victoria Thornton was awarded the Order of the British Empire, and the list of participating metropolises includes Brno and Prague.
The Prague edition runs until Sunday, August 8, and has opened eighty normally inaccessible buildings. You can choose from the accompanying program for children and adults at the same time.
What not to miss at Open House Prague?
Ara Palace
The functionalist palace, which was built in 1931 on the corner of Perlová Street, is often missed without knowing its amazing history. The steel skeleton uses the same construction as New York skyscrapers.
Witnesses remember the Perla department store, which was located here and offers a range of premium goods.
Zizkov Municipal Spa
At the time, it was the most modern spa, which was also visited by Emperor Francis Joseph I. However, the house later experienced a real decline: first there was a brothel, later the neoclassical corner house was abandoned and began to fall into disrepair. Now the building is before reconstruction, the House of Dance should be built here.
Trmal’s villa
Who among you suspects that there is a villa in Strašnice by the architect Jan Kotěra, who built it for the esteemed school inspector František Trmal? The building looks like it is from another world, because here you will find a combination of folk elements, English modernism and Art Nouveau.
Art garden
Would you expect one of the most poetic corners of Prague lurking under the Nuselský Bridge? Sculptor Karel Novák built a magical studio here at the beginning of the 20th century, where a number of valuable sculptures were created, including a statue of US President Woodrow Wilson.
During the construction of the Nuselský Bridge, most of the works were destroyed, and it was not until 2006 that the entire area, thanks to its current owner, underwent significant revitalization and some artifacts of restoration restoration.
Grab’s villa
In Liben there is a magnificent seat embodying the complex history of the last century. The villa was built by a clan of Jewish industrialists, who built the largest Austro-Hungarian factory for waxed and rubberized canvas, wallpaper and dyes in the vicinity of the Košinka homestead.
The Grabe family managed to flee to the United States before the Nazis, replaced by the Hitler Youth. After the war, there was a gendarme station, an infant institute and a medical school. Now the building is used by the Office of the Prague 8 City District.
Waterworks Štvanice
One of the first Prague power plants and concrete structures at the same time. The groundbreaking building was built between 1912 and 1914 in the style of French castle architecture. It has recently been modernized, so it is worth looking into its interior.
Petschk’s palace
Otto Petschek was the richest man in the First Republic, and even former US Ambassador Norman Eisen wrote a book about his villa. The bank palace, which was built by the Petschk family, still circumvents legends.
There was its own pipeline post office, telephone exchange and air conditioning, but the building was shrouded in dark shadow by World War II – the Gestapo tortured its opponents here.
In the post-war times, the Ministry of Foreign Trade was located here, now the building is used by the Ministry of Industry and Trade. During the tour you will get to one of the most mysterious rooms: the Petschovka safe.