Post-apocalyptic skyscraper, co-designed by David Černý, set to be country’s tallest building

The title of the city with the country’s tallest building could soon pass from Brno back to the capital, if plans for constructing a new skyscraper in Nové Butovice are given the green light. Top Tower, a project designed by the studio that features renowned sculptor David Černý, would be 135 metres tall and feature a massive, rusted out ship embedded in its structure.

The unveiling of the plan to build Top Tower, the country’s tallest skyscraper, came with a promo video that highlights the dangers of climate change. The building certainly evokes feelings of the inevitability of man’s eventual fall.

Visualisation: archive of Trigema

A giant rusty shipwreck, its bow reaching for the sky, cuts through the main building. Plants growing out of the hull seem to symbolise man’s creation slowly being reclaimed by nature.

According to Tomáš Císař, the lead architect of Black n´ Arch studio, which designed the structure, the building also serves as a pedestal for the ship.

“This is something we wanted to do as a memento which connects art and architecture. It is actually a post-apocalyptic message about what is happening around. The L-shape of the building is kind of catastrophic. It serves as a pedestal for the statue. It is more solid and the ship is going through it. It is sort of a fresh apocalyptic picture.”

The inside of the building forms a courtyard that is dominated by a massive, rusty ship propeller placed in the centre.

Mr. Císař says that this will be a multi-purposed structure, housing rented apartments, offices and retail stores.

The ship-wreck will also feature a vertical elevator that will transport visitors up to its highest point, where they will be able to admire the capital’s famous panorama.

The investor for the CZK 2 billion project, which was first unveiled at an international urban conference last week, is the Prague-based developer company Trigema.

According to the company’s spokesman Radek Polák, Top Tower will connect to a nearly kilometre-long pedestrian zone running from Nové Butovice metro station.

Visualisation: archive of Trigema

Asked about whether City Hall has authorised the construction yet, Mr. Císař says that negotiations are currently in their initial phase, but the work could well start soon.

“We hope that the construction could begin in 2021 and it would take about two and a half years.”

If all goes according to plan, Top Tower will be David Černý’s third imprint on the Nové Butovice neighbourhood, together with his Trigema statue and the Cyberdog winery, which was designed by the Černý-Císař duo.

Asked about whether there are any more major projects the duo is working on, Mr. Císař says that their design of an upcoming memorial bridge to Bohemian-Jewish entrepreneur Emil Kolben, who died in the Terezín concentration camp, promises to be provocative.