The spaces of the department store Máj in Prague are closed; reconstruction will begin

Prague - As of today, all spaces of the Máj department store on Prague's Národní Street are closed. The ground floor and the first floor of the department store have been inaccessible since the end of April, and as of today, Tesco is also out of operation. In June, a complete reconstruction of the department store, which is a cultural monument, is expected to begin. The reconstruction will last about a year and a half and will cost over a billion crowns.

The reconstruction will begin 50 years after the commencement of the construction of the department store in 1972. Máj is expected to reopen to the public at the end of next year. The owner of Máj is the development company Amádeus Real, owned by the Prague Klán family. The company stated that it collaborated with the original authors, architects Martin Rajniš and John Eisler, on the design of the reconstruction of Máj. According to the developer, the project has taken into account suggestions from other experts in heritage care and urban planning.

Previous plans for the reconstruction of Máj were criticized by the Club For Old Prague two years ago. At that time, it stated that the proposed adjustments would fundamentally change the shape of the building and deform the monument unacceptably. The developer now states that, after an agreement with heritage protectors, it will preserve the appearance of the building and restore, for example, the exposed ceiling highlights on the individual floors.

The department store at the corner of Spálená and Národní was built on the site of the neo-Gothic Šlik Palace according to the design of Miroslav Masák, John Eisler, and Martin Rajniš from the Liberec studio SIAL, which was founded in 1968 by the author of the Ještěd transmitter, Karel Hubáček. Máj opened to customers on April 21, 1975. In 2006, the Ministry of Culture declared the building a cultural monument.