Flashes of the future

Most of the world's population lives in cities, and architecture theorists and city planners are busy re-envisioning what cities should look like and how they can best meet the needs of digital-age inhabitants.

The main concern is how to transform cities that have developed slowly across many centuries into thriving metropolises of the 21st century. The DOX Centre for Contemporary Art offers a glimpse into future visions for Prague in its ongoing exhibition "City Interventions Prague 2010."

"It tries to show architects as people who are concerned about the city where they live," said Adam Gebrian, curator of the exhibition. "We asked for designs that could actually be realized, and I usually ask architects after they present their idea what they are going to do or how they are going to act to help their idea to be implemented."

Elsewhere in the world, city planners work on designing whole new communities, like the Masdar Initiative in Abu Dhabi, but every metropolis has to deal with more practical and pressing issues like reviving blighted areas.

The idea to ask architects how to improve their home cities comes from Slovak studio Vallo Sadovský Architects, and its first exhibition of ideas in and about Bratislava in 2008. From this exhibition, one of the projects is already under construction.

City Interventions Prague 2010 includes 80 designs for Prague's public spaces from around 50 architecture studios. Every design is presented on a rather small panel, perhaps one of the exhibition's few weak points.

One of the most highly regarded Czech architecture studios, led by Josef Pleskot, designed a concept for changing the neighborhoods along Prague's north-south expressway that sandwiches the National Museum at the top of Wenceslas Square. Pleskot's studio suggests placing galleries, hotels and housing along and under the expressway to revive this space, though it does not specify what to do about voluminous motorway traffic.

"Now it is creating a border in the city center," Pleskot said in a lecture introducing his proposals. "The space around it is rather sad and wasted, although from our point of view it is one of the most interesting places in Prague. There is a lot of potential."

Indeed, the city has preliminary plans to take these roads underground while the National Museum undergoes renovations in the next few years.  

Other projects do not show such a large and dramatic intervention in the existing infrastructure. Some, such as a yaw meter placed at every bus stop so that the smokers can exhale their smoke in the right direction or the "Citytotem" (punching bags placed in public spaces), are sarcastic but functional at the same time.

And others offer new visions for foot bridges over the Vltava River. Architect Zdeněk Fránek proposes golden balloons flying over Prague's assorted towers.

"Once I was in New York, and there was this installation by Christo," Fránek said. "It was clearly inspired by traditional Chinese or Oriental art. It was dynamic, changeable and although it was formed by a series of gates with flags, it was kinetic art. I thought it would be nice to design something like that for Prague because it offers a new view of Prague and its 100 spires."

If the 2008 Bratislava exhibition is any precursor, some of these proposed projects may eventually come to fruition. Even if they don't, the exhibition offers a future vision for a still developing city, with mix of humor and wit.

Filip Šenk can be reached at
fsenk@praguepost.com