Expected and controversial: Kunsthalle Prague

Last Tuesday, a new cultural institution, Kunsthalle Praha, opened in Prague. Its opening was accompanied by great public and media interest. I dare say that the professional community was curious not only about the appearance of the reconstructed Zenger Transformation Station under the direction of Schindler Seko Architekti but also about the exhibition program, which is problematic for some due to its financing.

Modern technology hidden behind a historical facade

The building of the Zenger Transformation Station, designed by architect Vilém Kvasnička, dates back to 1930-1932 and was built on the site of the former Bruská Barracks. The transformer station and substation with a tram converter was named after Václav Karl Bedřich Zenger – a professor at the Czech Technical University in Prague, a physicist, and the author of the grounding lightning rods system used at the National Theatre and the Eiffel Tower. As the exhibition curator Vendula Hnídková points out, the designs for the construction of the transformer station were originally functionalist from all participants in the competition, so it can be deduced that this was a request from the investor. None of these designs, which can be seen in the exhibition Zenger Transformation Station: Electricity in the City, Electricity in Architecture, were granted a construction permit.

The building, which was realized according to Vilém Kvasnička's neoclassical design, had four consoles on the facade, on which the author planned to place sculptures of female allegories by Jaroslav Horejc. However, the head of the board of Electric Enterprises of the Capital City of Prague and art patron, Eustach Mölzer, hired his nephew, Zdeněk Pešánek (a Czech pioneer of multimedia kinetic art), for this work. He designed a set of four three-meter multimedia sculptures made of plaster, metal, plastic, and neon tubes titled One Hundred Years of Electricity, which glowed and emitted sounds. After being displayed at the World Expo in Paris (1937), where they received a special award, they disappeared. Due to the subsequent war conflict, the facade thus remained permanently empty, which is a pity, according to Hnídková: "If the transformer station building was supposed to merge with the architecture of historical Klárov, then Pešánek's intervention would have vibrated the historical context and introduced a completely new accent here."

A journey toward new use

Due to repeated modernizations of the transformer station and converter operations, an increasingly smaller part of the building was being used. Between 2000 and 2010, all equipment was relocated to the building's basement, and a new function for the building came into question. The company Property Klárov (formerly Marvikven, a.s.) planned to convert the building into a hotel according to the design of architect Martin Rajniš.

At the initiative of the Club for Old Prague, the transformation station was declared a cultural monument in April 2015 with the justification that it is a technical monument which, although it does not belong to the monuments of modern architecture, sensitively closes the space of Klárov under the Letná massif and thus represents a valuable expression of neoclassical architecture sensitively embedded in a historical environment.

In the same year, the building was purchased by the Pudil Family Foundation with the intention of creating a cultural institution. Petr and Pavlína Pudil established the foundation in 2014 and donated a collection of 104 paintings, drawings, and graphics from the 20th and 21st centuries valued at over 238 million crowns. In connection with this funding, discussions on the ethics of art financing arose. This included a protest in front of the gallery building on the day of its opening. Vladimír Turner and other artists see the foundation's activities as artwashing – cleansing one's name through investments in art.

To new interiors behind the reconstructed facade

At the beginning of the story was the building and the vision of the institution. The director of Kunsthalle Praha, Ivana Goossen, stated that the functional areas were defined in the early stages, from which the construction program emerged: "We wanted a solution that would be designed in the most suitable way for gallery operations and for visitors. Our vision was a place that does not close even between exhibitions, so we knew we needed more exhibition spaces. We wanted to create a place that attracts people in their everyday life (thus involving gastro operations, a design shop) and brings art closer to the general public (educational aspect). The vision of the institution defined the necessary spaces." The total usable area of the building is 5,700 m², housing three exhibition spaces, a bistro, a café, a bookstore, educational spaces, offices, and two publicly accessible terraces. When it comes to sources of inspiration, Ivana Goossen mentions Tate Modern, the Guggenheim Museum in New York and Bilbao, Centre Pompidou in Metz, or Beyeler Foundation in Switzerland. The Pudils often mentioned the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art as well.

The first study of the building's solution came from the architectural office Schindler Seko Architekti, which focuses mainly on the architecture of residential and office blocks. It involved a monolithic concrete structure, firmly connected to the historical facade. A prominent new element of the outer part of the building is the entrance bridge made of stainless steel sheet coated with bronze, as well as a one-story extension in the area of the original technological terrace. Ivana Goossen noted that there was a long discussion about whether this study was the right one for investors or whether it would be better to seek an international architectural studio that has experience with similar realizations. "In the end, we said that given the building's history, someone foreign wouldn’t be able to handle it as well as a studio that knows Prague and its local history." – "We decided not to look for another architect and to continue with this concept. At the same time, we thought it would be great to invite a foreign studio specializing in interior design." – "We wanted their opinion not only regarding the furniture but also surfaces. This resulted in a very useful dialogue between the interior designers and architects." The interiors, designed by Axel Kufus and the Berlin-based Werkstudio, are composed of a combination of coarse-grained concrete, white plaster, glass, and black lacquered metal. The floor is mostly made of terrazzo.

Although the renovation of the monument-protected building was subject to heritage oversight, there was also an examination by the heritage inspection of the Ministry of Culture, as according to experts from the Research Center for Industrial Heritage at CTU, heritage elements of the interiors were removed and the house was rather demolished than reconstructed. At that time, the heritage inspection stated that the work was not fully in compliance with the interests of heritage care, but was commensurate with the condition of the building. Its interiors were made of aluminous concrete, which was popular between the 1930s and 1950s for its rapid strength gain even at low temperatures but often collapsed under its own weight over the years. According to ČTK, the leniency of the Ministry of Culture played a role as well since the city council had previously lawfully approved the adaptation of the building into a hotel, and heritage officials feared the owner might resort to more drastic interventions.

We therefore asked directly the NPÚ about the volume of preserved material. The guarantor Mgr. Veronika Koberová confirmed to us that the valuable facade of the building and the corner part of the building, which originally served office operations of the transformer station, have been preserved. During the reconstruction, three concrete pillars of aluminous cement in the western facade were also restored. "This solution appeared to us as the most suitable for maximum preservation of the monument's value, as the collapse of the pillars would lead to the complete removal of the western facade of the southern front." Thus, only a small amount of the original building material was preserved. Better off are the partial historical elements: "Historically valuable parts, e.g., infill structures, stone elements, etc., were numbered, thoroughly recorded, and temporarily stored off-site. The vast majority of elements were restored in a restoration regime." – "Most of the elements, for which it was previously agreed that they would return to the building, have been reinstated and are presented. It was even agreed during construction that the crane, which was part of one of the halls and was to be removed, would remain preserved in the interior of the newly created gallery." Today it can be seen in the bistro's interior. Ivana Goossen adds that besides the restored windows and beams, the offices contain, for example, the original entrance doors covered with copper that could not remain in their original place due to safety and fire regulations. Efforts to preserve the original DNA or reference of the building are, according to her, visible in maintaining the contrast of the concrete interior against the neoclassical facade. The terrazzo, designed by German designers, works with the principle of returning original materials back into the building – embedded within are copper wires from decommissioned transformers and porcelain from original circuit breakers.

> www.kunsthallepraha.org