The Museum of Applied Arts will display parts of the interior from the Hotel Prague

Prague - The Museum of Applied Arts will present some items at Designblok that it managed to acquire for its collections from the Hotel Praha. "Above all, we will try to spark a discussion about both the Hotel Praha case itself and broader topics of preserving the memory of the communist era, the powers of the state and the rights of the owner, and the conditions for declaring modern buildings as cultural monuments," said the museum spokesperson Jana Ulipová to ČTK today.
The hotel, built at the end of the 1970s in Dejvice, served the needs of the Communist Party and the Czechoslovak government until November 1989. Many perceive it primarily as a symbol of the pre-November era. Earlier this year, it was purchased by an owner who intended to demolish it. Shortly after, a group of theorists, artists, architects, and preservationists submitted a proposal to the Ministry of Culture for its designation as a cultural monument. However, not all experts support the preservation of the hotel; architectural historian Zdeněk Lukeš stated in the press that he considers the building to be average architecture.
"A building of enormous dimensions does not fit the villa housing of Hanspaulka at all and literally overshadowed the public park, which surely did not bother the Communist officials of the time," he noted. He sees the problem of the building in the fact that it cannot be operated without significant financial losses. According to him, it is not possible for the state to purchase the hotel and operate it at a loss using public money. "It is also not permissible to dictate to the owner what to do with their own property. Therefore, I do not recommend heritage protection for the aforementioned reasons."
However, the ministry has not even initiated the relevant proceedings and moreover decided on this step only in June; two days later, the new owner of the hotel, the PPF group, announced that it would demolish the building and construct the Open Gate school and a park closed to the public in its place. In the meantime, the hotel lost a large part of its furnishings - according to the proposal's authors, the ministry contributed to this with its delay.
According to them, the hotel is a unique example of architecture that stands out from the average of its time. The artworks, decoration, and furnishings in the interiors represent an extraordinarily cohesive set of contemporary art and design. The main architects of the building were Jaroslav Paroubek, Radko Černý, and Arnošt Navrátil; several other authors contributed to the generous solution of the exterior and interior, including Stanislav Libenský, Jaroslava Brychtová, Pavel Hlava, Zbyněk Hřivnáč, Jiří Rathouský, Antonín Hepnar, and others.
The Museum of Applied Arts in Prague and other institutions have managed to acquire some design and artistic craft items for their collections. At the Designblok exhibition, which will take place in Prague from October 7 to 13, there will be displayed an information system by Jiří Rathouský and metal lighting fixtures. The museum is negotiating to acquire other items. PPF has already requested the relevant authorities for the demolition of the hotel.