Iconic Prager’s Cubes look set for renovation in 2025
The buildings of the Association of Design Studios, known colloquially as ‘Prager’s Cubes’, are a set of modernist buildings in Prague’s New Town that are in desperate need of renovation. Thanks to popular support, that renovation is likely to happen in 2025.
Standing in the gardens of the Emmaus Monastery in Prague’s New Town, the three modernist office buildings known collectively as ‘Prager’s Cubes’ (Pragerovy kostky) are a striking contrast with the medieval abbey next door. Designed in the 1960s by architects Karel Prager and Jiří Kadeřábek, the cuboid metal and glass buildings have their critics, but also many fans. Public affection has recently manifested in a campaign to get the Cubes’ owner, the City of Prague, to start renovating the widely admired symbols of 1970s architecture. Such a renovation is long overdue.
Originally built to be the headquarters of the Association of Design Studios, only three of the intended five buildings were completed in 1973 and approved for operation the following year. At present, the buildings house the Prague Institute of Planning and Development, which run the public-facing Centre for Architecture and Metropolitan Planning (CAMP). The institute’s spokesman, Marek Vácha, describes the poor state of some parts of the buildings:
“This building has a hole. You can literally see it on Building A from the third floor, and it's covered with insulating tape. The reconstruction is really necessary … There are colleagues here who got dripped on inside the building, especially after the heavy rains in September. This means that you will find buckets and cloths here, similar to some places in the metro. This is a situation where we are trying to glue things down, not quite literally, but we need to take [the building] from the ground up and really repair it so that it doesn't fall down.”
Excluding the renovation of their outer shell in 1988, the buildings have otherwise not been maintained and kept fit for everyday use since the 1970s. Architecture from the communist era of Czechoslovakia does not enjoy the same respect as Prague’s many Renaissance and Baroque buildings, and the threat of demolition hangs over Prager’s Cubes. This was the fate of the modernist Transgas building on Vinohradská Street in 2019, after a push to have it declared a cultural monument failed. Earlier in February, the Club for Old Prague wrote to Minister of Culture Martin Baxa to ask for the same status for Prager’s Cubes.
Steps towards a much-needed renovation of the Cubes have been slow; the City Council approved the project in early 2022, but work did not begin in 2024 and the necessary funds were not included in the draft Prague budget for 2025. Due to the delays, a petition for an accelerated reconstruction was launched and signed by almost seven thousand people.
At last, with the green light given by the city government, it seems that Prager’s Cubes will be saved in 2025. Only a final few administrative steps stand between the Cubes and their 1.1 billion crown reconstruction, as Kristýna Drápalová from the Praha Sobě civic movement explains:
“The bids have been evaluated, which means that all that is left to do is sit down and sign the contract with the winner. It will probably take a few months, but it shouldn't take long, because the deadline of April 30th has been approved and a resolution has been passed that the reconstruction should begin this year.”
