Hotel Praha

Hotel Praha

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Výjimečná stavba s pohnutou historií a tragickým koncem. Legendární dejvický hotel Praha opět ožívá - ve stejnojmenné rozsáhlé monografiI sochaře, publicisty a neúnavného ochránce umění ve veřejném prostoru Pavla Karouse a jeho spoluautorů. Kniha na 250 stránkách mapuje historii vzniku, provozu i ostudného zániku této unikátní stavby čtveřice architektů Paroubka, Navrátila, Černého a Sedláčka z konce 70.let minulého století. Hotel stavěný původně pro komunistickou elitu, se stal výstavní skříní toho nejlepšího, co bylo tehdy architektonicky i designově možné - možná paradoxně bez ideologického zabarvení. Osvětlení navrhoval geniální Stanislav Libenský či Pavel Hlava, autorské lampy Karel Volf, sochařskou výzdobu Břetislav Benda a Miloš Krátký. Nábytek navrhoval mezi jinými i Zbyněk Hřivnáč. Luxusu pokojů i apartmánů s výhledem na Pražský hrad (tehdy naprosto nadstandardně vybavených barevnou televizí a ledničkou i vcelku standardně odposlechy tajné policie StB) si v průběhu let užiívali takoví přátelé socialismu jakými byli Jásir Arafat či Muammar Kaddáfí. Luxusní a vysoce kultivované prostory hotelu byly po pádu režimu převedeny na Prahu a sloužily nejen VIP hostům (např. hudebník B.B.King či hollywoodské hvězdy Tom Cruise a Nicol Kidmanová), ale i široké veřejnosti. Na úsvitu nového tisíciletí byl hotel bohužel zprivatizován kontroverzními firmami a ministerstvo kultury mu následně, i přes řadu intervencí architektů i historiků, odmítlo přidělit status památky. V tragickém finále pak celou stavbu nakonec poslal k zemi miliardář Kellner. Hotel Praha - to je nejen příběh unikátní architektury, ale také transformace české společnosti od reálného socialismu k reálnému kapitalismu. Provokativní obálku ztvárnil Vladimir 518, grafickou podobu knize vtiskla Tereza Hejmová a Terezie Štindlová. Společně s Pavlem Karousem (autorem projektu i stejnojmenné knihy Vetřelci Volavky, mapující umění ve veřejném prostoru před rokem 1989) se na publikaci podíleli i historici Ladislav Zikmund-Lender a Milena Bartlová a dokumentarista Martin Kohout.

The decision to build the Hotel Praha as a luxury and representative hotel for official government and party visits of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia (KSČ) was made by the party’s central committee in December, at the turn of the year 19691. The building was designed and built in the 1970s, placing it in the time of so-called normalization, the euphemism for political development after the occupation of Czechoslovakia by the Soviet Army after August 1968. Normalization was exceptional beyond the economic and organizational framework in which new architecture was created, but it was also a time of tremendous social and political upheavals. The immediate contracting authority and target user of the building was the KSČ, that is, the absolute power hegemon of the time, whose leadership had been put in power by the tanks of the occupying armies of the Warsaw Pact. After its completion in 1981, the Hotel Praha was handed over to its users and became a closed-tothe- public structure, serving only high-level Party functionaries and for official Communist Party and government visits. This marked the beginning of what became a legend-enshrouded, dark past, rife with the vigorous activities of the secret service, weapons dealing and corruption. After the revolution in 1989, another chapter was added to the story. The period of the drastic, neoliberal economic transformation of society and the unsuccessful attempts at privatization, which left their mark on the hotel, eventually led to the destruction of this extraordinary piece of architecture. From beginning to end, the story of Hotel Praha is not only the story of a monument of exceptional and timeless architecture, fine arts and design, but also a portrait of the nation’s political and social conditions. Every piece of architecture is the result of the individual creative, constructive, and organizational abilities of its designers and is a consequence of the general cultural, social, political and economic situation in which it arises and which it embodies. Prestigious and costly structures also always directly represent the power ambitions of their builders, usually the current, ruling group. In this respect, the unique architecture of the Hotel Praha can be viewed as a case study. In 1969, the economic administration of the Central Committee of the Communist Party announced a single-round invitation tender. From the invited Prague design teams, the seven-member jury, led by then chairman of the Association of Architects and rector of the Brno University of Technology, Vladimír Meduna, chose a design concept drafted by the team of Jan Sedláček: Jaroslav Paroubek, Luděk Todl and Arnošt Navrátil. The committee justified its choice by citing the following positives of the design concept: “…material incorporation of the proposed complex into the site, use of the land and placement of the complex, use of green areas … building architecture … in an overall ideological approach and detail …” 2 The architecture of the hotel, despite the fact that the contracting authority was the normalization leadership, was actually built on the most progressive tendencies of the 1960s, due to the tradition of professionally-led design competitions. Its organic and “fluid” morphology, which sculpturally responded to the terrain, was completely in the context of the world trends of that time.

architektura; socialismus; dějiny architektury; design; komunistická strana; hotel Praha

architecture; socialism; architectural history; design; Communist Party; hotel Praha

KAROUS, Pavel; ZIKMUND-LENDER, Ladislav; BARTLOVÁ, Milena; KOHOUT, Michal; ŽÁČKOVÁ, Markéta

8. 4. 2019

Vysoká škola uměleckoprůmyslová

Praha

978-80-87989-27-2

Hotel Praha

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