"In the ‘90s the architecture was much more interesting": Jan Bureš on Prague's post-1989 construction boom
Devade (Nineties) is the title of a fascinating new book and exhibition looking at architecture in Prague in the first decade after the Velvet Revolution. Among the best known buildings referred to are hotels such as the Hilton and the Don Giovanni, as well as the Myslbek Palace and the now iconic Dancing House. I discussed the challenges faced by Prague’s architects in the 1990s – as well as the advantages they enjoyed – with one of the book’s authors Jan Bureš, an architect and journalist who was himself born in 1996.
It seems like there’s a generally negative view of architecture in Prague in the 1990s. Where does that negativity come from?
“This negative feeling towards ‘90s architecture is mostly from the general public.
“Many people – and I did it as well, before I knew more about it – associate it with kitsch architecture.
“Because before the revolution, in the ‘80s and ‘90s, in the era we call normalisation, architects mostly did just grey boxes – blocks of flats – where there was not much creativity for them.
“Then when things opened up and there was freedom, a lot of people thought that for many architects it meant that now they had to do everything: a lot of forms, a lot of shapes, a lot of colours.
“So many people associate it with this kitsch – not being able to step back, and doing these crazy buildings.
“That’s not untrue, because that’s just one part of ‘90s architecture.
“We don’t have great knowledge about what ‘90s architecture was, and the general public just see those crazy examples, because the not so crazy ones are not so visible, of course.”
What were the challenges facing architecture in this country after the fall of communism? There were a lot of educated architects, right? But did you have investors? Did you have all the things you need to produce good architecture here?
“Architects were no longer only architects – they also had to be good at being an entrepreneur.”
“Yes, it was a completely different story for architects, so they had to adapt to completely new conditions.
“Before the revolution in ’89, as an architect you worked in a central institution of planning, where you worked for the state and you mostly did blocks of flats. So you were an employee of the state.
“Then after the revolution what changed mostly for architects was that they were no longer only architects, which means you are good at designing buildings – they also had to be good at being an entrepreneur.
“You had to run your own firm, and if you were a good architect but were bad at that you wouldn’t get any projects.
“This was one major change – you had to learn how to run your own firm, how to talk to clients, how to use a fax and all these things that were new at the time.
“The other major thing is that when the borders opened a lot of investors from the West came here. They wanted to invest money into this beautiful city of Prague, which was a new market for them.
“They wanted to invest in big projects like hotels, office buildings and stuff like this. So the architects had to learn how to talk with them.
“And a lot of times the foreign clients didn’t trust the Czech architects so well. So, for example, there was a competition for a new building, a Czech architect won and the investor came along and said, Here is my architect and he’s going to work with you, because I don’t trust you fully.
“That was the case for many projects.”
This kind of leads me to my next question. Many people are familiar with the word “starchitect” – who were the first starchitects, or at least international names, who came to Prague?
“There are only two big names. The first is Frank Gehry, the famous architect who passed away recently.
“He was probably the number one starchitect. He’s the author of the famous Dancing House, which he did with [local architect] Vlado Milunic.
““The investor said, We need some big name – we cannot do [the Dancing House] with Vlado Milunic because no one knows him.”
“This is the exact thing I was talking about. The idea for the Dancing House started even before the revolution, because Václav Havel, the first president, was living next door to the site.
“He was friends with Vlado Milunic, who also lived in the building, and they said they had to do something with the corner site; it was an empty site which had been bombed in 1945.
“So they started planning this and they had to find an investor. They found one, which was Nationale-Nederlanden, a bank and insurance company that is nowadays called ING.
“The investor said, We need some big name – we cannot do it with Vlado Milunic because no one knows him, and we need this as PR for the building.
“They said, We need to make the building famous – and a big name is going to make it famous.”
“So they brought Frank Gehry from Los Angeles. He took over the project and he designed the whole thing.
“This was even before his most famous project, the Bilbao museum.
“And it helped the investor to make this building, which is very famous. If you go to the Dancing House you always spot 20 tourists next to the building.
“So this strategy of the investor’s was really good in this regard.”
And who was the second big international architect? Was it the French architect Jean Nouvel, who did Zlatý Anděl?
“Jean Nouvel was a big superstar for Czech architects in the 1990s, a lot more than Frank Gehry.”
“Yes, that’s pretty much the same story as the Dancing House.
“The Anděl was a huge development – it was a whole new quarter, in Smíchov – so again they were like, We need some big star to put a label on this.
“They asked Jean Nouvel and he came and only did this corner building, a small plot within the whole site, and it became famous as well.
“I have to say that Jean Nouvel was a big superstar for Czech architects in the 1990s, a lot more than Frank Gehry.
“They loved him from magazines and stuff. He was like a hero, so for many architects it was like a dream come true.”
You mention Václav Havel in connection with the Dancing House. He also appears a few other times in the book, including in a piece about Myslbek that says “Myslbek is the building that disappointed Václav Havel”. What were his objections to that project?
“It’s a funny story because he was a friend of an architect who was one of the co-authors of Myslbek and he said it was a really bad building – and when he found out it was designed by his friend, he said he wouldn’t have said it that way if he’d known he did it [laughs].
“Myslbek is probably one of the most hated buildings of the ‘90s and it’s not because of the building itself. It’s because of what happened.
“It was the main parcel in the centre of Prague, a really big site, and again a foreign investor came. Even though they did a competition, it was a bit weird. A Czech architect won and again the investor was, like, Here is my French architect and he’s going to work with you.
“That’s quite bad, if you have a competition and you do this.
“Then there was a huge critique of the fact that the building lies on the whole site, there is no free space; it was criticised as being only commercial.”
I learned a lot from your book, including that the Hilton was started at the end of the 1980s – I thought it was a ‘90s building. Also I was pleasantly surprised to read that you consider the Czech Radio Studio Building, where we’re sitting now, to be “one of the most successful and technologically interesting” Prague ‘90s buildings. What makes this building a successful project for you?
“First of all, when you look at the building from the outside it’s the architecture that I like – it’s not trying to look fancy but is very modest, let’s say.
“I think they did a really good job of this. If you look at the facade, it’s made from really high quality material, this red stone which is actually, I think, from Scotland.
“That’s one thing. But why it’s so interesting for me technologically is that the building faced a lot of challenges.
“It’s a radio station, where what you need is quiet, so you have to make the building as quiet as possible. You have to get rid of all of the vibrations and all of the sounds from the street.
“And here we are near the [central] train station, there’s a very noisy street, Vinohradská, where you have trams and a lot of cars, and underneath us there’s a train tunnel and the Metro.
“There are a lot vibrations so the architects had to find a way how to get rid of this and they found a – at the time really new – technology, which is a set of black springs that are underneath the whole building.
“Their job is to kill all the vibrations that are coming from underground.
“And it’s really nice that this technology is visible – if you go to some parts of this building you can see the springs and you see that the whole building, from the first floor, is lying on this technological system.
“It’s quite nice to see it, actually.”
For me what was great about the book was seeing a lot of places that I know or where I have been, such as the renovated Langhans Palace, Hotel Josef. What is your favourite of all the buildings in the book?
“This is a very hard question and I always choose a different one when somebody asks me.
“But I’ve found a connection to all the buildings. Because we’ve met all the authors; it’s good to meet a book about something which is 30 years old – you can still meet all the authors who are still alive.
“When you talk with them and you write the story you somehow find a way to find the building more.
“But if I had to pick one thing, I would pick the buildings by Stanislav Fiala. We actually have three projects by him.
“He was a very talented architect in the ‘90s, with a very personal approach towards architecture.
“And all of these buildings he has in the book – two are office buildings and one is a family house – would still be fresh and would win architectural prizes if they were built today.
“Because the language is outside of its time and he used really good materials in a very original way for the time.”
Is he the guy who did the building on Národní a few years ago?
“Yes. I’m not a huge fan of his contemporary output, but in the ‘90s he was really the most talented guy, in my opinion.”
What do you regard as the worst of the buildings of that era? I know a lot of people hate Hotel Don Giovanni, which is also on Vinohradská. It’s seen as looking like a pink cake or something.
“It’s hard for me to choose the worst building, but it’s not the Don Giovanni, in my opinion.”
“You know, it’s hard for me to choose the worst building, but it’s not the Don Giovanni, in my opinion.
“If I had to choose one, I think it’s probably the Hotel Hilton. There are interesting things about the hotel, but the bad thing about it is that it’s super huge and it doesn’t fit the Karlín neighbourhood.
“Because it’s so huge and it was at the start of the development of Karlín, it set the height standard for the other buildings, which are not as high as the Hilton.
“I think that’s really bad, because if they had not made it as big, the rest of Karlín, Rohan Island, would be quite a lot better in terms of dimensions.”
I guess it’s always a challenge in Prague, at least in the centre, for architects to place new buildings among all the old ones. Was that a big issue in the ‘90s also, because you have all these architectural styles from centuries past? Were architects in the ‘90s pushed to make new buildings fit in with the original ones, so to speak?
“Yes, it was a huge topic. In ’92 or ’93, Prague’s whole city centre was placed on the UNESCO World Heritage List.
“So it was a huge issue at the time and you have to understand that in the ‘90s there were a lot of empty sites in the city centre; nowadays there is zero, or, like, two, but at the time there were a lot of empty sites and of course investors wanted to build on those, because they were the most valuable.
“Most of the buildings that we have in the book which are in the city centre, like the Langhans Palace or Hotel Hoffmeister…”
The Four Seasons?
“There was huge pressure from the heritage committee to make The Four Seasons fit into this neighbourhood. But they did it too much.”
“The Four Seasons… they tried to mimic the old town in a way.
“In my opinion The Four Seasons is trying to do it a lot, because there was huge pressure from the heritage committee to make it fit into this neighbourhood.
“But I think they did it too much – they could be more contemporary. Because I think a building shouldn’t be very radical but it should let you know that it’s from some era.”
The book and the related exhibition at the CAMP centre for architecture also include period advertisements for building materials and products, and they really evoke that period for me. That seems to me to be another aspect of the 1990s architecture story – suddenly Czech people were able to transform their homes, to buy all these products from DIY superstores. That’s another ‘90s story, I guess?
“Yes, that’s a huge ‘90s story and it’s exactly why we put the advertisements in the exhibition, so I’m glad it’s visible like this.
“Before the revolution, in the ‘70s and ‘80s, you could choose from one window type, one door type, one railing type – and that was all.
“If you wanted something else, you had to really please senior members of the Communist Party, or you had to make it yourself, DIY.
“Then after the revolution, when everything opened up, there were new companies from foreign countries; the market was really and there were a lot of new products.
“Advertising was a huge part of that and if you go through magazines, it was mostly advertising, because it was a completely new thing.
“Nowadays it’s still the same, architecture magazines are full of advertising; but in the ‘90s it was something new.
“The advertisements were sometimes funny and sometimes, I would say, over the edge. Sometimes it was quite sexual…”
Like pictures of naked women in showers and stuff like that?
“Yes. But the ‘90s were different – the bar was a lot lower than nowadays.”
But people did have the chance to remodel their homes.
“Yes, they did. And I think it must have felt great.
“But nowadays we even see the shadow of this: we have so many products and most of them are really ugly and bad.
“There is no control in this and you can see that everyone uses different products and it’s quite a mess.
“So it even has a bad side to it.”
This is not the topic of your book, but how do you feel that standards of architecture in Prague today compare to in the ‘90s?
“In the ‘90s, the architecture was much more interesting. I think the architects also had more power, let’s say, to do things.
“Sometimes a building got a permit and the next year it was running, it was open.”
“Because nowadays architects have zero power. You do a building and you’re hoping that the investor will build it the way you designed it.
“Also there’s no discourse going on in architecture. In the ‘90s there was a huge discussion.
“There were a lot of magazines and architects discussed and wrote critiques in magazines and so on.
“I think they even had more power in terms of designing the buildings and in my opinion the buildings were more interesting. Because the change was so radical that you could sense it.
“But nowadays it’s very hard to put some sort of opinion into architecture, because you are just glad you have something going on.
“Also one thing I have to mention: Nowadays it’s bizarre in Czechia – it takes forever to build a building.
“To get permission, it’s like five or sometimes even 10 years. And in the ‘90s it was so quick it’s unbelievable to me.
“Sometimes a building got a permit and the next year it was running, it was open.
“When I started working on the book, I thought it was just the case with one building, but it was every building.
“It was one year for a building, which is unbelievable nowadays.”
So in fact it was a kind of golden era?
“Yes, it definitely was. There were a lot of bad things, a long of things were bad and nowadays we see the shadow of those decisions in urban planning and in some other areas.
“But, yes, I have to say that many things for architects were better than nowadays.”
Devade exhibition
CAMP
Vyšehradská 2075, Prague
Until May 17, 2026
