‘Turn right at the corner of Kantova and Hegelova’: Plans unveiled for Prague’s Philosopher Quarter
Rohan City, a planned neighbourhood east of Prague city centre, is set to include a series of streets that honour both nationally and internationally famous thinkers.
Located on a big bend of the river Vltava, Rohan Island is today an island only in name. Split between the Prague neighbourhoods of Karlín, Invalidovna and Libeň, the former island was created through deposits left by floods, and was for decades little more than a dumping spot for the city’s waste. However, Rohan Island can now look forward to a brighter future.
Rohan City is a brand new neighbourhood measuring approximately twenty-one hectares (five times the size of Wenceslas Square). It is expected to be completed by 2035, and will provide housing and offices for around 13,000 people. Its streets will be very philosophical in theme; nineteen philosophers have been chosen to give their names to the green and pleasant streets of Rohan City. They include foreign thinkers like Kant, Hegel and Wittgenstein, and more local intellectuals like Jan Patočka and Ladislav Hejdánek. Only one female philosopher will appear among them: the French philosopher, activist and mystic Simone Weil, who will have a square named after her.
The main impetus behind the naming is Luděk Sekyra, real estate developer and founder of the Sekyra Group, which is investing in the major project. For Mr. Sekyra, philosophy is a “lifelong passion”, and he wants to create a district “for living and thinking, for reflection”. Mr. Sekyra also has plans for annual philosophy festivals in the new neighbourhood, the first of which will take place in September this year.
The street names have met with general approval, including from the Prague-born French political scientist Jacques Rupnik, who spoke at an unveiling event earlier this month:
“What’s interesting is that it’s a neighbourhood of philosophers. You have Kant Street, which crosses Hegel Street. There’s Roger Scruton Street, next to Derrida Street and the one named after Edmund Husserl, who also has a connection with Prague, so it’s all very well designed. I think it’s the first philosophical neighbourhood I’ve ever seen. Of course, there are streets named after philosophers, but this is a whole neighbourhood! What’s more, the names resonate with each other, which makes you think. So I think it’s a very original idea.”
Prof. Rupnik also commented on the irony of a street named after French philosopher Jacques Derrida:
“Derrida was interested in what was happening here [in Czechoslovakia]. He was active in the Jan Hus Association, which, in the 1970s and 1980s, was trying to develop intellectual ties with that country, under very difficult conditions. French philosophers came to Prague and Brno to give lectures at independent seminars, including Jacques Derrida and Paul Ricœur. This clearly bothered the authorities at the time. Derrida was expelled for illegal drug dealing. It’s quite ridiculous; he was smiling about it himself when I saw him in Paris afterwards. It’s an irony of history. He was expelled from that country, and today he has a street here.”
