The City Hall of Prague 3 commissioned a project for the transformation of Jiří z Lobkovic Square near the Olšany Cemeteries. The whole process is calculated to be worth CZK 7 million and it will be executed by the architectural studio Perspektiv that won the competition for the square’s transformation last year. The decision was made by the city council earlier in the week. The square is located at the Olšanské hřbitovy tram stop and it includes a tram loop. According to the approved document, Perspektiv, the architectural studio that won, has to finalize and complete all the necessary documentation in the next four months. A playground and a fountain According to the winning design, the space will combine the features and the feel of the original square with a new proper park. The lush green area will be preserved in the middle, and it’ll be perfect for walking dogs or picnicking. Most of the square’s current trees will be left untouched. In front of the primary school bordering the square on the south side will be added a new space for children. It will be partially covered with parquet floors, a fountain and three playgrounds for kids of different...
The keynote speaker of this year’s SWCSummit, which takes place in Prague on October 5th and 6th, is computer engineering legend Steve Wozniak. Forty-five years ago, he stood side by side with Steve Jobs at the beginning of the Apple brand. Later, his groundbreaking desktop computer changed the development of the IT industry forever. Visitors to the event will not only see him live but will even have the opportunity to ask him a question. Tickets are available at swcsummit.com. However, due to the pandemic, SWCSummit’s capacity will be limited to a few hundred people, so early purchase is quite recommended. In addition to Woz’s performance, the program’s highlight will also be the traditional continental finals of the Startup World Cup. The victory awaits a startup that will rise from the pool of past regional rounds or associated startup competitions. The winner will be rewarded with an investment of $500,000 and the title “European startup champion”. This year, we are upgrading the prestige of the European finales to an even higher level than before as we broaden our portfolio and we also patronize various other competitions such as the Czech Startup Challenge, Creative Business Cup, PowerMOTION, and others. “SWCSummit thus...
The complete reconstruction of the Prague metro station Jiřího z Poděbrad starts today (September 1st), in part to replace the Soviet-era ‘Leningrad’ escalators, install lifts and provide barrier-free access to platforms. The last phase of repairs will be the replacement of escalators. Because the Jiřího z Poděbrad station has only one exit, after January 2023 it will be closed for 10 months and metro trains will not stop there The repair will cost DPP CZK 1.29 billion and the work should take over two years. New elevators will be put in for barrier-free access to the station. The first ones will take passengers from the train platform to the transfer corridor, and from there the other elevators will go up to Vinohradská Street. Most of the work will take place during normal operation, which will be interrupted only when the station ceiling is breached. Workers will also renovate or replace wiring and lighting, remove leaks, replace air conditioning and repair damaged parts of tiles. Geotechnical monitoring of the excavated work, ie monitoring of the subsoil, will also be performed. “The planned modernization is one of the largest we have undertaken in the last few years in terms of scope, length...
IKEA celebrates a milestone this week, 30 years since opening its first Czech store on September 5th in Prague on Budějovická. The grand opening took place at seven o’clock in the morning and was a big social event, which was also attended by the then Minister of Finance Václav Klaus. During the month of September, IKEA will offer special discounts, a festive menu, and birthday packages. “The store was often completely full and there were long queues at the box office. In the beginning, IKEA was perceived extremely prestigious on our market, important personalities and celebrities came here,” recalls Lenka Žižková, a university teacher and publicist who has long been involved in housing culture and design. “Czechs were visiting the store not only when they needed to buy something for the apartment, but also to get inspired and to improve their mood,” she adds. The chain moved from Budějovická in 1996 to its own department store in Zličín. In 1998, it opened a second department store in Brno, three years later in Ostrava, and the newest of the department stores, in Prague’s Černý Most, welcomed its first customers in 2004. Recently, IKEA has launched its English version of the website,...
“An extension of Prague’s public transport” – this is how representatives of Nextbike, the largest domestic bike-sharing company, talk about their upcoming project with the city administration. The project was put in charge of the organizer of the Prague public transport Ropid, who after the completion of the test phase will evaluate the interest of passengers and propose further steps. According to the city management, shared bicycles are a beneficial complement to public transport. “At short and medium distances, it is the most environmentally friendly individual means of transport,” says one of the representative. The aim of the project is to verify the interest of Prague public transport passengers in the use of shared bicycles and to offer Lítačka owners another possibility of transport in the metropolis over shorter distances. There are two main rental services: Rekola with 600 bikes and Nextbike with 700 bicycles. If you are interested in renting an e-bike, there are two operators with them in Prague: Bolt and Homeport. However, the idea of including shared bikes in the public transport system is already receiving criticism from Praguers. At the beginning of August, due to tariff changes, those passengers who were used to using one-off tickets when traveling by public transport...
Religion can play a key part in integrating into a new culture for many foreigners. Often, immigrants arrive in the Czech Republic knowing few others from their homeland, and religious communities fill the role of providing an ethnic and cultural haven needed during the transition and inevitable culture shock. The majority of Czechs are not religious, but while the census somewhat reflects the population accurately, an element of governmental distrust pushes some to lie about their religious preferences on official records. Regardless of what the true statistics are, Prague has a selection of places of worship to fit most denominations. The list below is by no means exhaustive, but highlights just a few of the organizations available. Catholicism St. Thomas’ Church- Josefská 8 Catholicism makes up the largest percentage of religious Czechs at a mere 10%, so many churches extend their services to the more devoted expat community. St. Thomas’ has daily services throughout the week and Sunday masses can be found at all times of the day and are conducted in either Czech, English, Spanish, or Filipino. My American friend was in Prague for a semester and regularly attended the 11am English mass and now she recommends it to her...
Švanda Theatre is a theater in Štefánikova street in Smíchov. It continues the long tradition of the previous theater based in this building and its surroundings. The first theatre company which started performing in the garden of an old house „U Libuše“ on 1 October 1881 was the originally touring theatre company of Pavel Švanda from Semčice. This theatre group also performed on the summer stage „V lesíčku“ (at the barracks on the opposite side of the square), and after 1891 in the newly built wooden Arena on the Smichov’s embankment “Hořejší nábřeží” where they had performed until they finished their activities in 1934. The first building was designed by Smichov’s architect and developer Josef Záhorský. There was a major transformation in 1900 when the theatre entrance was built right from the street instead of the garden. The works also involved space conversion of the stage and auditorium realized by the developer Šimek. More adaptations followed in 1908, 1910, 1914, and later in the period of 1918 to 1920; a radical reconstruction of the front façade of the theatre was done according to Ladislav Machoň’s project in cubist style and the building became the main feature of Kinsky square. The most remarkable part of the building in...
Architects worldwide are now turning even more of their attention to Prague. The capital city, together with its Institute of Planning and Development (IPR Prague), has officially announced an international architectural competition for the design of the Vltava Philharmonic Hall. In May of 2022, the jury, headed by the internationally renowned Czech architect Michal Sedláček, will choose the winning building design for the new concert hall that will be standing in Holešovice in Prague, near the Vltavská metro station. “We’ll know what the new Vltava Philharmonic Hall will look like in May 2022,” said the organizers of the competition. “Today, at last, a big step has been taken towards adding another culturally significant building to Prague after more than 100 years.” “Starting today, all interested parties may officially submit their competition applications. Five entities, chosen primarily from among the most renowned architectural studios, will be asked to participate directly. These are Diller Scofidio + Renfro, Snøhetta, Ateliers Jean Nouvel, David Chipperfield Architects and SANAA,” stated the Chairperson of the jury, Michal Sedláček. “We also expect a strong showing from Czech architects, because as professionals we view this as an exceptionally open competition, which means they’ll have a great chance to win,” Sedláček added. The deadline for submitting applications is 30...
German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier paid tribute Thursday to Czechoslovak paratroopers who assassinated senior Nazi official Reinhard Heydrich in 1942. By laying a wreath at a Prague church and visiting a crypt in which the paratroopers died after a gunfight with the Nazis, Steinmeier became the first German leader to recognise their sacrifice. Like his predecessor Joachim Gauck, Steinmeier also recalled two Czech villages razed to the ground by the Nazis in retaliation for the killing of Heydrich by the paratroopers trained in Britain. The destruction of the Lidice and Lezaky villages were part of a Nazi retaliatory sweep that saw 15,000 people detained, killed or taken to a concentration camp. “These villages were destroyed and there were so many victims,” said Steinmeier, who is paying a three-day visit to the Czech Republic. “When we become aware of this difficult history and the things that unite us, we can be happy that our proximity, partnership and friendship have such solid foundations that are practically independent of our political constellations,” he added, hailing German-Czech relations as the best in memory. “What we are experiencing is something absolutely exceptional, it is a treasure we have to take care of,” Steinmeier said after meeting...
Operators of advertising tarpaulin spaces on buildings in Prague consider the new decree on the regulation of outdoor advertising to be discriminatory and want to repeal it. This was stated at a press conference yesterday by representatives of the Association of Czech Outdoor Advertising Companies (SČVR). The decree is to apply from October. About 120 large tarpaulin advertising boards and 1,400 advertisement spaces on benches are to disappear from Prague beginning October, but about 11,000 more billboards outdoors or inside public transport will remain. According to the chairman of the association, Josef Soušek, the decree affects smaller businesses rather than large companies that have long-term leases with the municipality. “Our goal is to repeal the decree and at the same time repeal the practice where the municipality and city districts automatically extend contracts for the lease of spaces for advertising,” he said. Advertising on tarpaulins on the facades of buildings does not require a permit, and according to Soušek, the city cannot regulate it, so it was decided to ban them altogether. Prague councilor Hana Třeštíková (Praha Sobě) stands behind the new regulation. “Advertising regulations have not yet been enforced outside the historic center,” she said. According to Filip Antonín...
Prague’s public transport will resume its normal daily schedule. Trams and metro trains will shorten their intervals on Saturday 28 August, buses and trains will start the new schedule on Wednesday, 1 September. This was announced on social media by ROPID. Public transport will thus go back to its operations in the time before the coronavirus pandemic. Trams Trams will now run every 8 minutes at peak traffic time, and trams 9, 17, and 22 will travel even more frequently- every 4 minutes. Metro “On all lines, the intervals between trains will be shortened for almost the whole day. In the morning rush hour, the trains will run even more frequently,” states ROPID. The intervals are about 2 minutes and 30 seconds on line A, 2 minutes and 20 seconds on line B, and 1 minute and 55 seconds on the line C. Buses For city buses, the frequency will increase on 1 September. On backbone lines, the interval returns to 6 minutes, on the busiest lines, there will be 5 minutes between connections. Other city bus lines will also become more frequent and the total number of bus connections will increase by about 15 percent, according to ROPID. The...
Going along the busy Francouzská street, that, after a short distance from Náměstí Míru, steeply descends the south-east side of the hill, on which there is the famous and elegant district of Vinohrady, after a few steps we come to the Administrative district of Prague 10, where we discover a fascinating and interesting area to be explored: the centre of Vršovice. The first records of this district – that borders to the north with Vinohrady, southwest with Nusle, to the south with Michle and to the east with Strašnice – date back to 1088 in the foundation document of the Vyšehrad Collegiate Chapter dedicated to the Saints Peter and Paul. The first settlement at Vršovice took place at the same time as the one in the valley of the Botič torrent, at the time of the first royal allocation on the hill of Vyšehrad. Among the many nobles who possessed this territory over the centuries, there was Pražan Stuka, who was lord of the land between 1311 and 1328, who later sold the entire village and possessions to the Order of the Teutonic Knights. The Germanic order of chivalry built a stronghold in this area, that soon became an active...
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