“The metro would testify to the time of its creation that it paid attention to the aesthetic level,” says Sedláková about post-war architecture in Czechoslovakia, “It also paid attention to the quality of materials and originally also to the quality of details. She was able to come up with a great orientation system and connect architecture and visual arts. And she also paid attention to the speed and convenience of public transport.”
The Prague metro is celebrating fifty years since its opening. What is its architectural value – and is it not disappearing before our eyes? How to stand up to the communist heritage, materialized for example in the sculpture Moscow-Prague, against which a few days ago high school student Jan Boháč wrote a petition? Architecture historian Radomíra Sedláková answers not only that.
Student Jan Boháč wrote a petition for the removal of the Moscow–Prague sign in the vestibule of the Anděl metro station. Is it enough to add an explanatory sign to it, as the deputy for transport Zdeněk Hřib intends, or should the sign be removed completely?
This is quite a hot topic. The relief is excellent in terms of craftsmanship, but it bothers me in terms of content. Current events cast him in a completely different light than the one in which he was created. Looking at him today evokes indignation and anger – and these are states that we should generally avoid.
However, I think that, as in Staroměstská (the Victorious February mosaic by the painter Martin Sladký realized in 1978, editor’s note), it would be enough to simply cover it (of course, I don’t mean just with a tarpaulin) – among other things, because it is faster than liquidating the artistic works. At the same time, liquidation does not mean destruction. When removing the relief, the stone surface would inevitably be damaged – and that would be a real shame. Even under cover there should be an explanation of why and when it was created.
Couldn’t covering up the writing lead to memory loss? After all, there is already a petition to preserve it.
We come to more complex questions. Covering the inscription will move the work somewhere it does not belong. The whole thing is a period composition of relief and text. However, the text is currently not pleasant. Explanatory texts will only draw attention to it and will certainly lead to different interpretations and attitudes. That’s why it would probably be better to cover it all up.
By the way, there used to be an artistically great mosaic on the theme of Victorious February in the Old Town. She disappeared from sight, out of memory, but I think she is not missing. I see the same here, I’ll just feel sorry for the beautiful stone. The whole of Moskevská was composed as a whole – from the vestibule through the station to the second vestibule, and that is already disturbed anyway.
If we were to take the inscription only as the letters themselves, then it would be nothing against anything, Moscow is a nice historical city, its name is from the long pre-Soviet era. It’s just that it has the references to the current situation, it actually has unfavorable connotations with the entire Soviet establishment.
Do you consider the architecture of the Prague metro to be unique? In what?
The subway has long been understood as a utilitarian means. Since the 1940s, Moscow has turned it into an ideological tool, when they began to decorate it in the style of monumental historicism with elements of socialist propaganda. Prague is unique in that it has found the right measure of how to incorporate cultured architecture into the means of transport, which corresponds to the parts of Prague it passes through, which exactly corresponds to the artistic sensibility of the years when the individual routes were created. In that he is quite interestingly unique.
Route A has an original architectural concept. The colors referred to the historical milestones of the station names. What else do we not know or have forgotten about metro architecture?
I think we have quite forgotten that the metro not only transports us, but also creates a welcoming environment for us underground. Stations are like spacious bright halls where we don’t even realize that they are underground.
The fact that we don’t pay attention to architectural details is unfortunately true in general, so we don’t mind that, compared to the original uniform style, some elements are thoughtlessly replaced with functionally identical but simply ugly ones. Notice how many stations featured ordinary padlocks.
We forgot that the lobbies were equipped with remarkable works of art in which glass and light were combined, I mean the metro station Náměstí Míru (Glass installation by Václav Cigler, which responded to the number of passing passengers by lighting up various figures. Installed in 1978, removed by twenty years later, editor’s note), or Náměstí Republiky (Glass stele by Václav Cigler, which were moved to the private premises of the Palladium department store, editor’s note).
Art in the subway
The lobbies and stations of the Prague metro were fitted with works of art during construction. It was imposed by a law that said that every building under the supervision of the state must devote up to four percent of the budget to the arts. The law entered into force in 1965 and was repealed in 1991.
More than a hundred glassblowers, sculptors and artists took part in the art in the spaces of the Prague metro. Some of the works were propaganda (e.g. the Victory February mosaic in the vestibule of the Můstek station), others were inspired by history (the artworks at the Jiřího z Poděbrady station) or worked with modern technologies.
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Which subway line do you find the most charming?
In my opinion, the most charming is the original line A, on which there is a breathtaking Malostranská station. However, each line has its own individuality: the oldest C is moderately stone, the original A was entirely in imaginatively shaped anodized aluminum before the flood, line B was no longer so uniform, but after all in its first stage glass prevailed, be it the noble Náměstí Republiky or the ice-cold , and at the same time gently shaped Karlovo náměstí or Radlická.
The society has a problem with a lot of buildings from the communist era. Isn’t that the case with the subway?
I admit that I don’t know why the company has a problem with them. The 1960s in particular gave Czech architecture a lot of great projects, not all of them were realized, and those that were realized represent European-level architecture. Apart from housing construction – but there, unfortunately, architecture was never discussed.
In our evaluation of buildings, usefulness prevails a lot. And the metro is very useful for Prague. And its architecture really is of high quality. And people probably feel it, even if they probably wouldn’t be able to articulate it.
The subway was built in the 1970s and 1980s. years and it was the fulfillment of a dream that Prague had had since the end of the 19th century. This is the time when the first more concrete considerations about the routes and the shape of the stations began to appear. Prague was the closest to this in the late 1930s. So the fact that it was built at a time when the Czechoslovak Republic had “socialist” in its name certainly does not make it a building with a communist past.
If the subway became the only architectural monument of communism, what could be learned about that time?
Well, that would be sad if everything else disappeared. The image of the time would be very flattened and very susceptible to superstitions and myths (which are already abundantly manifested). But if this were to happen, the subway would testify to the time of its creation that it was a time that paid attention to the aesthetic level, the quality of materials and initially also the quality of details, was able to invent a great orientation system and connect architecture and visual arts. And also that she paid attention to the speed and convenience of public transport.
On the other hand, it occurs to me that the subway was also undergoing major modifications. A lot of elements disappeared, the lights changed, the Metron font disappeared. Didn’t the architectural value of the metro disappear?
It’s a shame that a new typeface has appeared. It would be great if each station had its own, but unfortunately that’s not happening. The metro was badly damaged by the floods, but I think it’s great how they managed to keep at least most of the elements in the stations.
I don’t think that the architectural value of the subway would be reduced, I regret that the design of individual elements, which are placed rather randomly, has changed (I’m mainly referring to benches and trash cans, if they are anywhere at all). That value changes with new solutions that increase the comfort of passengers (originally there were no elevators anywhere, two exits were rare), but they do not reduce the value. Rather, they show us that we have lost something of the social aesthetic sense. And not only in the subway.
Radomíra Sedláková (*1950)
Doc. Ing. architect Radomíra Sedláková, CSc. is an architectural historian, curator and educator. In the eighties, she established a collection of architecture in the National Gallery in Prague. Since the nineties, he has been lecturing on the history of architecture at Czech and Slovak universities.
What should the maintenance of the subway actually look like?
Just like taking care of every building. Regular cleaning not only according to the schedule, but as needed (which, unfortunately, is not always the rule). I know she cleans at night. Passengers are so oblivious to this that already at eight o’clock in the morning there is quite a lot of discarded garbage in the subway.
However, this is only current care. I think that any additions and replacements of specific elements should be carried out with regard to the original architectural plan – this does not have to mean creating replicas of benches and light fixtures (even if the fluorescent lights are installed quite insensitively at the Anděl station), but always looking for agreement with the original plan, not just quick maintenance work.
Is there anything architecturally wrong with the metro? And how are the new stations?
I can’t think of anything, the metro has always been designed according to a meaningful unified plan by good architects (perhaps not everyone knows how many stations were designed by women), but unfortunately no one cares about their names – and they can’t even be easily found.
Aesthetics of the Prague metro in photos. Look at:
Photo: Michal Turek, Seznam Zpravy
