The Máj department store in Prague is closed and its reconstruction will begin
16.05.2022 09:28
As of Monday, all premises of the Máj department store on Prague’s Národní třída are closed. The ground floor and first floor of the department store have been inaccessible since the end of April, and Tesco has not been in operation since Monday. In June, the overall reconstruction of the department store, which is a cultural monument, should begin. The reconstruction will take about a year and a half and will cost over a billion crowns.
Reconstruction will begin 50 years after the construction of the department store began in 1972. May should reopen to the public at the end of next year. The owner of Máje is the development company Amádeus Real, which is owned by the Prague clan family. The company stated that it collaborated with the original authors, architects Martin Rajniš and John Eisler, on the design of the reconstruction of Máje. According to the developer, the project also took into account the suggestions of other experts in monument care and urban planning.
Two years ago, the Club for Old Prague criticized earlier plans to rebuild Mája. At that time, he stated that the proposed modifications would fundamentally change the shape of the building and unacceptably deform the monument. The developer now states that, in agreement with the conservationists, it will preserve the appearance of the building and restore, for example, the exposed ceilings on the individual floors.
The department store on the corner of Spálená and Národní was built on the site of the neo-Gothic Šlik Palace designed by Miroslav Masák, John Eisler and Martin Rajniš from the Liberec studio SIAL, which was founded in 1968 by the author of the Ještěd transmitter Karel Hubáček. May opened with customers on April 21, 1975. In 2006, the Ministry of Culture declared the house a cultural monument.