A new visitor center and café will be established in the Trade Fair Palace

Prague - The National Gallery in Prague has announced a tender for the transformation of the entrance spaces and visitor center at the Trade Fair Palace. A new gallery café, located in the front areas of the palace, is also expected to attract more visitors to the exhibition spaces. ČTK was informed about this today by the spokeswoman of the National Gallery, Eva Kolerusová.
The functionalist Trade Fair Palace houses the largest part of the National Gallery's collections - the Collection of Modern and Contemporary Art. "It was put into operation in 1995, and since then its interior spaces have undergone a number of partial adjustments, not always well coordinated with each other," the spokeswoman stated. The National Gallery is therefore preparing further tenders for the adjustment of the remaining spaces.
Visitors enter the Trade Fair Palace directly from a busy intersection, and there is a lack of an appropriate entrance space. "It doesn't attract much and doesn't indicate that it is the entrance to the building of the National Gallery in Prague with its unique collections of 20th-century art," the announcement states. The halls are reportedly not welcoming and do not provide visitors with an overview of what the palace offers. The winner of the competition should ensure more prominent signage and improve the information system. A new visitor center with ticket offices, cloakrooms, and shops will be created.
The new entrance will allow visitors direct access to the exhibitions, as well as to the underground spaces of the multipurpose hall, the Great Hall, and in the future, to a new café. The non-smoking café is expected, according to the brief, to be directly linked to the gallery's operation. Its interior should aesthetically and functionally correspond to the current use of the palace. It will serve not only the gallery's visitors but also the public. Furthermore, the gallery wishes for the café to be accessible to parents with children in the morning and afternoon hours, and in the evening, it should serve any accompanying programs of the gallery.
Proposals for the interior and operational solution of the café are accepted by the gallery until November 30, and results are expected to be announced in mid-December. The winner of the competition for the realization of the entrance spaces will be known at the beginning of February next year.