The Transgas buildings are among the most striking constructions of the 1970s in Prague

Prague - A business card of the Transgas building complex on Vinohradská Street in Prague (the owner of the premises can demolish the buildings; to date, no one has filed an appeal against the demolition decision):

- The buildings were constructed from 1966 to 1976 for the needs of the control center for the international gas pipeline being built from the Soviet Union to Czechoslovakia and then to Western Europe. It housed the Central Dispatching Facility for Gas Transgas and the Ministry of Fuel and Energy, later the Central Bohemian Energy headquarters; most recently, the buildings housed the client center of the General Health Insurance Company. The buildings were owned by the company ČEZ, which sold them to the development group HB Reavis. They will be demolished, and modern office buildings will be erected in their place according to the design by the architectural studio Jakub Cigler Architects. According to the developer's previous statements, they could be completed by early 2021.

- The authors of the complex in brutalist style with technical details are Jindřich Malátek, Ivo Loos, Zdeněk Eisenreich, and Václav Aulický.

- The complex consists of three buildings located in the lower part of Vinohradská Street adjacent to the building of Czech Radio and is bordered by the streets Římská and Rubešova. The construction had to make way for two apartment buildings from the 1870s.

- The dominant feature of the complex is the cantilevered rectangular building of the dispatching center, clad in insulation made of paving stones. The use of gas pipeline tubing, which creates a tunnel connection between all three buildings and is also used instead of railings, is also prominent.

- In the recessed corner of the ground floor at Římská Street, there was a fountain with the motif of a levitating sphere designed by Ivo Loos. Part of the representative interiors, which Loos collaborated on with architect Jan Fišer, has been preserved to this day.

- The buildings, considered by some experts and the public to be among the ugliest in Prague, once housed the most modern computer in then Czechoslovakia. They are also known from the film "Vesničko má středisková," where they portrayed the headquarters of the company Dřevoplech.

- The Transgas buildings are located within the Vinohrady heritage zone and in the protective zone of the Prague Monument Reserve, which was declared in 1971.

- "The realization of Transgas is one of several connections that maintained the mental link of Czechoslovak architecture to European developments. The boldness of the construction and architecture has another quality, which is the utilization of the energy of the site itself and the development of the potential for further development of this area," said curator Rostislav Koryčánek about the buildings according to www.archiweb.cz.

- Last year, the Ministry of Culture addressed a proposal to declare the buildings a monument at the suggestion of the Club for Old Prague. The authors of the proposal described the buildings as an excellent example of stylistically synthetic architecture of the 1970s, combining elements of brutalism, technicalism, and postmodernism, but also a unique realization of postmodern urbanism in the Czech territory.

- The National Heritage Institute did not recommend the declaration. It stated that "the affected area does not create an urban environment and materially and in scale detracts from the environment of the urban monument zone."

- The ministerial commission nevertheless began to consider the proposal. At the end of 2016, the ministry decided that the complex would not be designated as a monument. In its justification, it stated, among other things, that "the architectural qualities of the existing building do not compensate for its serious urban deficiencies."

- Minister of Culture Daniel Herman began to review his officials' decision last spring. At the end of September, he stated in the media that the appeals commission recommended reevaluating the office's approach, indicating that Transgas needs to be preserved. In November, the Club for Old Prague informed that Minister Herman halted the review process, thereby suspending the provisional heritage protection of the buildings. In the minister's decision, it is stated that the properties are inappropriately integrated into the surroundings, that the details of the buildings, facades, and railings are out of human scale, that no significant cultural or historical event took place in the complex, or that the buildings are not a significant example of brutalism. "The authors of the properties tried to imitate Western models, but with a highly questionable result," states the decision.

- The Building Authority issued a decision to permit demolition on January 9 of this year. From the moment the last participant in the proceedings received the decision on January 14, a fifteen-day period for filing an appeal began. This period expired on January 29; however, the authority waited several days to see if any appeals were delayed in delivery. Based on the issued permit, the owner has two years to demolish the complex of buildings from the date the decision takes legal effect. The spokesperson for the developer, HB Reavis, Jakub Verner, already stated to the Czech News Agency in November that according to preliminary estimates, the new buildings could begin to be constructed in about a year.