<Pivovar Proud>Proud Brewery</Pivovar Proud>

The power plant built in 1905 within the grounds of the Pilsner Urquell Brewery as part of the Spalkovo project supplied electricity for the brewery and part of the city until 1995. During its operation, it underwent several technological changes, none of which brought significant benefits to the building itself, quite the opposite. The communist regime took the worst toll, transforming what was once a "temple of progress" into a dirty boiler room. Since 2019, the building is being transformed into a brewery with a planned annual output of 10,000 hectoliters. The first phase is currently closed – the brewery brews beer in one of the two halls, and the building is statically and technically secured. The continuation of the reconstruction and conversion, primarily involving a hall with a capacity of 500 visitors, is in the design preparation phase. In the future, visitors will be able to experience a concert, an exhibition, a lecture, a microbrewery festival, or "just" taste classics and new products from glasses with the Proud logo.

The leitmotif of the reconstruction is to seek boundaries and to fully understand the past and future function of the building – to allow oneself to demolish valuable parts, resist unnecessary reproduction of original forms, seek sufficiently high-quality replacements, and merge contemporary technology with the building's possibilities. Embracing the idea that we are primarily building a functional production facility – "just a brewery" – and not a "gallery".

We preserve historical elements that make sense for today's use. We do not want to demolish unnecessarily. A significant part of our proposal is to rectify how the building was treated in the post-World War II era. Major interventions are to be minimized and must hold a very high position in the hierarchy of the building – we propose a new entrance accentuated by a generous outdoor staircase, new glazing of the main gable declaring its new function with a view of the brewing hall. In the interior, we plan to utilize equipment from the former electrical distribution station, as well as the overhead crane and other objects and surfaces.