Compact archive February 21, 2008

Prague stands before another architectonic contest. The Prague Municipal Council wants to give the Old Town Square the missing part back. The spot left after bombed Town Hall, with a little park and horse carriages, could be occupied again.

The reason, why it lays unused since the WWII are continuing disputes among two groups, one desiring to keep it the way it is; historic, the other claiming the Square is chaotic and needs a central point – probably with a center of travel movement with a permanent exposition of the city development.

There has been many designs before, but no one good enough. To build in the Oldest part of Prague is a controversial idea, for some much more controversial than the Blob library.

If you want to see some works of contemporary Czech young and successful painters, the good choice is to visit the exhibition, which is now held in The City Gallery Prague in exhibition spaces of the Municipal Library.

Among the artists who exhibit here are Jakub Hosek, who was already twice nominated for prestigious Chalupecky prize for young Czech artists, Petr Malina with his self-portraits, Jakub Spanhel, who became famous for his dark and sizable acryls, Josef Bolf, Petr Petrbok, Filip Cerny and many others, there are almost 30 of them.

The gallery is situated in the building of the Municipal Library, on Marianske Square, but the entrance to the gallery is from Valentinska Street, it is not far from Staromestka metro station (green line). They are open from Thursday to Sunday, always from 10 AM to 6 PM. And exhibition is to be here until 23rd of March 2008.

Read the whole article on prague.net

The battle of two presidential candidates continues. The first to blame the other was Jan Svejnar, who, at a meeting of the Social Democrats said “…the present president owns his mandate to the votes of turn-coats.” he also expressed hopes for Klaus “will administer his office with more submission, conscious the people want change.”

Vaclav Klus appeared in a TV debate, where he replied “Svejnar has taken recourse to banalities, empty phrases and undignified words in his candidacy speech … I would be ashamed to use such dicta.” when he was asked to specify a little, he continued “… banalities such as education is important and and globalization is important. To discuss the necessity of education is useless, everybody knows how important it is.”

Jan Kaplicky is an architect who is a matter of many discussions in the Czech Republic nowadays. For many the savior, for many others the bane of Prague Letna, where his environmental Blob was supposed to be build, before Vaclav Klaus stepped in.

Discussions, how the Blob should be changed, moved, forbidden, or even build as it won the international contest, have been taking place for half a year new. But as a matter of fact, other cities like Brno, Bratislava, even Edinburgh would do a lot, to have Blob Library by Kaplicky. And it is the Brno mayor, who invited Kaplicky last week, to plan something for his city.

As MF Dnes informed, the abolished railway station in Brno is to be replaced with a brand new ‘city’. The Mayor Roman Onderka stated: “…there could be a bench or a building by Mr. Architect, which would become the new dominating feature of Brno” He would also like Kaplicky, living in London, to be an exterior advisor for the whole project of Brno becoming a new world architectonical metropolis. Kapilcky commented their meeting as “a very good start.”

The Czech Republic was visited by 6,7 millions foreign tourists, which is an international increase of 3,8 percent. According to the stats of Czech Statistical Office the most favorite place remains traditionally Prague, which attracted 4,5 millions tourists in 2007.

About 60 % of foreign tourists visit Prague only. The problem is most of other regions lack large 4-5 star hotels, which could be offered in catalogs of travel agencies. Those are the hotels which are the most busy, informed the Association of Czech Travel agencies. Most of regions lack hotel infrastructure, but at least they have gastronomical specialties in well-developed restaurant system.