Czech practice Brainwork has created a series of large ‘glass eyes’ along the capital’s Vltava river embankment, providing the focus of a new cultural hub.
‘I like the fact that this project was born of nascent independent cultural activities by local organisations, but ended up being supported and developed by the municipality as a key way of improving Prague’s city centre public space,’ says Petr Janda, Czech architect and founder of Brainwork studio, who co-initiated and designed the Prague Eyes project.
Janda, who studied both architecture and sculpture, has been running his practice since 2008 and collaborating with a number of independent Prague cultural promoters. Together with one of them, Ivo Slavík, he grasped the potential of Prague embankment (Náplavka) 12 years ago when the site, in the historical centre of the Czech capital, was used just for parking cars and materials storage.
‘Around 2007, we were discussing what new cultural activities might take place on the riverside, which at the time was completely underused,’ says Janda. ‘We wanted to initiate a process of converting the riverside into a cultural and public recreation space. In a way, Prague Eyes had been around since then.’
By 2009, the project was designed and showcased internationally, covered by blogs and magazines, and the city seemed fascinated by the simple but striking architectural solution. In the meantime, the Prague riverside underwent a lot of changes. Farmers markets, kiosks, restaurants, sport facilities, galleries and shops spread around it, turning it into one the country’s most visited destinations.
Read the full news on RIBA Journal.
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