The Architecture Day festival is starting, offering hundreds of excursions and workshops

Prague - Today marks the start of the 12th edition of the Architecture Day festival in Prague and other cities in the Czech Republic and Slovakia. The event, subtitled "Don't demolish, transform!", will offer hundreds of excursions, lectures, guided walks, workshops, and activities for children. It will take participants through normally inaccessible buildings, showcase architectural gems, and highlight forgotten structures brought to life through renovations. It will also commemorate the legacy of architect Josip Plečnik. The festival runs until October 6.

Prague is the main venue for the festival. A rich program will also be available in Brno, Ostrava, Opava, Zlín, Olomouc, and several other cities. "For 12 years, the festival has been created in collaboration with local associations, initiatives, and individuals, and thanks to them, we are able to capture local specifics across the republic,” said the festival's founder and director, Marcela Steinbachová.

The event is dedicated to the ecological, economic, and ethical dimensions of architecture and construction. It will showcase the transformation of a factory into a cultural center, a student cafeteria into a gallery, a housing estate kindergarten into a modern language school, and a panel house into modern housing. It will highlight the renovation of historical buildings, where elements of modern architecture have been sensitively integrated. It invites visitors on a trip to waterworks, industrial or sacred buildings, functionalist pearls, and the newest structures built with respect for the environment.

As part of the festival, the public in Prague will have access to the Langhans Palace, which won the Building of the Year award in 2003, or the building "Na Skále" on Truhlářská Street, which has been transformed into the leisure center "Jednička." In Brno, visitors will tour the low-energy office building "Otevřená zahrada." Animal crematorium "Věčná Loviště" in Žižice, the cultural center "Telegraph" in Olomouc, and newly renovated buildings of the Ostrava abattoir will be open for viewing.

The festival will also commemorate the architect Josip Plečnik, on the 150th anniversary of his birth this year. It follows his successors and colleagues from the Vienna School of Otto Wagner. At the Church of the Most Sacred Heart of Our Lord in Prague, the organizers will present a composition by Emil Viklický titled "Tribute to Josip Plečnik." Throughout the regions, the festival will also pay tribute to Czech architect Alena Šrámková, who is referred to as the first lady of Czech architecture.