Prague will verify the reconstruction of the planners' headquarters in the Emauzy area, which is set to start this year

Prague - The leadership of Prague will assess the project for the reconstruction of the city's Institute of Planning and Development (IPR) headquarters in the Emauz complex from an economic and operational perspective, so that it will be possible to commence work still this year. The city council tasked the councilors with this today after discussing a petition for the start of repairs on architecturally valuable buildings designed by architect Karel Prager. The city leadership has been criticized for the delay in the reconstruction, which is expected to cost over a billion crowns, particularly by the opposition party Praha Sobě. The repair of the so-called Prager's cubes was also supported today by the Czech Chamber of Architects (ČKA).

The modernist ensemble of three buildings completed in the early 1970s is in emergency condition, and the reconstruction has been in preparation for several years. The city already has a building permit and in 2022 issued a tender for a construction company, in which a winner was chosen by the committee last spring. However, the city council has not yet approved the result, and councilor for finance Zdeněk Kovářík (ODS) had reservations about the cost of repairs according to his repeated statements.

A petition was created for the preservation of the buildings, supported by about 3000 physical signatures and 3800 online. "The goal of the petition is to correct a mistake that occurred in December of last year, which is the exclusion of the already approved reconstruction plan from the city budget for 2025," said Jan Poslušný, a representative of the petitioners today.

Praha Sobě subsequently proposed a resolution that would compel the city council to complete the selection of a contractor and ensure funding for the construction without delay. This was unsuccessful for the opposition party. However, the city council approved a resolution proposed by representatives of the opposition ANO and the coalition, according to which the city should commence work this year.

The repair was also supported today by the Czech Chamber of Architects, which stated that the buildings are architecturally valuable. "sufficient time has passed since the inception of Prager's building for professional architectural criticism to determine which buildings created in the post-war period have quality and which do not. And Prager's building has certainly passed the test," stated the organization's chairman, Jan Kasl, in a statement. He added that Prager was one of the most prominent figures in Czechoslovak architecture in the second half of the 20th century, and losing one of his buildings would be an unforgivable cultural loss.

The three administrative buildings nicknamed Prager's cubes were built in the garden of the Emauz Monastery at the turn of the 1960s and 1970s. After completion, they housed the Project Institute of Construction of Prague, where the designer Karel Prager, who also designed the former Federal Assembly building, worked. IPR has been located on the premises since 2013, and in 2017 it established the Center for Architecture and Urban Planning (CAMP) in one of the buildings, intended for the public.