The owner of the Transgas buildings in Prague has requested their demolition

illustration: Jan Šrámek

Prague - The owner of the complex of buildings Transgas on Vinohradská Street in Prague has submitted an application for their demolition to the appropriate office. It is posted on the official board of Prague 2; according to the building department of the municipal district, the deadline for any potential objections is 20 days due to the holidays. Thus, the demolition of the 1970s buildings could begin in mid-August. The intention to remove buildings whose heritage protection the state refused has provoked criticism from some experts. The company HB Reavis plans to build several new buildings on the site of today's structures.

The twenty-day period from the submission of the announcement will expire on August 15. "Preparatory work for the demolition is still ongoing, and we cannot state the exact date when it will begin," said Kristýna Křemenová from HB Reavis today to ČTK. However, she stated that the demolition will not start on August 15. As soon as we obtain all the permits, we will be able to specify the construction dates and the planned completion of the project, she added. HB Reavis plans to build a multifunctional building on the vacant site according to the design by the architectural studio Jakub Cigler Architekti. According to earlier statements from the developer, it could be completed at the beginning of 2021.

In a short time, it is likely to be another demolition in the center of Prague; a year ago, an investor demolished a building at the corner of Wenceslas Square and Opletalova Street. A week ago, they began constructing a new building in its place.

The complex of buildings of the former Gas Central Dispatching Transgas and the Ministry of Fuel and Energy is located just above Wenceslas Square and below the Czech Radio building and is the work of the team Jindřich Malátek, Ivo Loos, Zdeněk Eisenreich, and Václav Aulický. The intention to demolish the complex of buildings has sparked a debate about the architecture from the socialist era, which has both supporters and critics among the general public and experts.

The announcement of the initiation of the proceedings leading to the demolition permit states that both tower-like structures, the dispatching building, the shops, and the former fountain and underground collectors of the area should be removed.

The Club for Old Prague attempted to protect the complex of buildings from demolition by proposing to the Ministry of Culture to declare them a monument; this is a commonly used approach in today's legislation to prevent the demolition of a building. The Prague office of the National Heritage Institute (NPÚ) did not recommend the declaration, stating that "the affected area does not create an urban environment and harms the character and scale of the urban heritage zone." However, the General Directorate of NPÚ supported the declaration of the building complex as a monument and communicated this to the minister. Nevertheless, the Ministry of Culture did not declare the buildings as monuments. The then Minister of Culture, Daniel Herman (KDU-ČSL), initiated a review of this decision last May, which he halted a few months later.

In his decision, it was stated, among other things, that the properties are inappropriately integrated into the surroundings, "the details of the buildings, facades, and railings are out of human scale," that in the complex there "was no significant cultural-historical event," or that the buildings are not, unlike the Ingstavu building or Kotva, a significant example of brutalism.

The authors of the proposal to declare the buildings a monument assess them as an excellent example of stylistically synthetic architecture from the 1970s, combining elements of brutalism, technicism, and postmodernism, but also as a unique realization of postmodern urbanism in the Czech territory. "On the site of today's three oversized Transgas buildings, seven houses will be built that will adapt to the surrounding scale of Vinohrady," HB Reavis previously stated.