Prague, Dec 4 (CTK) – About 160 people gathered today at Transgas, a set of buildings constructed in the Brutalist style in the centre of Prague, to protest against its owner’s plan to pull it down and the Culture Ministry’s refusal to prevent the demolition.
The owner of the Transgas complex, which dates back to the 1970s, wants to remove it and replace with new buildings.
The protesters put “the blame” on Culture Minister Daniel Herman, whose ministry recently refused to save the three-part complex by declaring it a piece of cultural heritage.
Today’s rally was convoked by the NGOs Empty Houses, Architecture 489, the Club for Old Prague and others.
Apart from Herman, the speakers criticised the National Heritage Institute (NPU) and the Prague City Hall’s heritage department.
Vaclav Aulicky, a co-architect of Transgas, said the governing establishment has been “systematically writing off one building after another, which makes the impression as if they planned to erase all constructions from the 1960s and the 1970s in Prague.”
Jan Fiser, author of Transgas’s interior design, said the protesters face a strong rival, who is a rich investor with a very good architect who has projected an alternative design for the given locality.
Transgas’s advocates also face a part of the public who dislike the building, and, unfortunately, also the Culture Ministry with the minister at its head, Fiser said.
Art historian Milena Bartlova said a better system of modern architecture protection must be created for developers to clearly know what can be done and what must not be done with various buildings.
Transgass’ defenders say the set of buildings designed by the team of Jindrich Malatek, Ivo Loos, Zdenek Eisenreich and Vaclav Aulicky is one of the country’s most impressive examples of Brutalist architecture.
The Transgas complex, built near Prague’s central Wenceslas Square in 1966-76, is owned by the HB Reavis developer group of Slovak billionaire Ivan Chrenko, which wants to replace it with a seven-part multifunctional complex designed by Jakub Cigler. Its construction is expected to start in a year and finish in early 2021.
