Malostranská – Krištof Kintera: Brutalist buildings in one place
Department store, church, bank and hotel in one park in Klárov. That all the buildings can’t fit in there? But yes, on a smaller scale. Krištof Kintera selected thirty-two Brutalist buildings in Prague. In the end, he narrowed down his selection to just seven, for which he created miniatures. He cast them from concrete, and they weigh five tons even with the base. Everything is in a natural symbiosis with the central and only original element of the park – a statue of a girl with a dove from 1958 by Václav Šimek.
Communists at the helm
Although the government of the Communist Party in Czechoslovakia from 1948 to the Velvet Revolution in 1989 trampled the culture of that time into the ground, nevertheless an architecturally successful realization of international importance was created. Brutalist buildings are still perceived by the people of Prague with embarrassment and because of their burden of the ruthlessness of the communist regime, the public finds it difficult to find a way to them. The negative attitude towards these buildings caused the tragic demolitions, during which the ground failed the magnificent Hotel Praha, or the planned demolition of the ÚTB (Central Telecommunications Building) in ŽižkovVinohrady Transgas is also no longer standing.
“Prague native Krištof Kintera has long been aware of this unpleasant reality of erasing the social memory of the city, to which he responds by transforming buildings into sculptures, i.e. works of art that form a completely new framework for the perception of architecture described as brutalist,” supports the miniatures of the Kunsthalle Prague, which is located opposite the park. The House Sculptures and Girl with a Dove project is a natural continuation of the opening exhibition of the Kunsthalle Prague entitled Kineticism: 100 years of electricity in art.
Vandals or an artist?
Models do not follow the same scale. That is why the “only” five-meter Žižkov television tower and the one-meter Emmaus Abbey with the legendary Brutalist tower stand next to each other. “There was no need for the buildings to be level and all the same size. We played with the scales in such a way that the buildings look interesting in the end and perhaps make the viewer nervous because he is not sure if the models are the right size,” comments Kintera for ČT about his works.
All models are already broken. It’s not the vandal’s fault. The author wanted to draw attention to the fragility of architecture through targeted destruction. At the same time, the fact that some brutalist buildings are no longer standing can also symbolize this to a certain extent.
Kintera also focuses on detail and interiors. “We also care about the insides. We want a person to be able to look into the building and into the structure. That’s why we built similar to a real house, floor by floor,” he adds for ČT.
Miniatures including destruction, lighting and different scales are meant to depict the fluctuating popularity of these buildings, however the utopian city of Krištofa Kintery is above all a clear example of strong architecture in the unfree.
To see: Žižkov Television Tower, Emmaus Monastery, Kotva Department Store, Hotel Praha, Bank by Karel Pragner, ÚTB (Central Telecommunications Building) and Karel Pragner’s never realized project.
place: Park Holubička, Malá Strana 1118, 00 Prague 1
Holubička Park hides seven miniature Brutalist buildings. Jan Dařílek
Hotel Prague.
Author: Jan Dařílek