The Price of the Club for Old Prague for the year 2024 is going to Brno

photo: Studio Flusser

Prague – The winner of the Club for Old Prague Award for 2024, which the Prague association awards for the highest quality new building in a historical environment, is the Art Studios of the Faculty of Education of Masaryk University in Brno. Designed by architect Michal Palaščak with Karolína Burešová and Jan Flídra, the building emerged from six finalists. The winners received their award today in the Prague café Boršov, consisting of a bottle of good wine and a large diploma.

The building on the edge of old Brno is described by the club as a pure volume accentuated by windows and white plaster, contrasting with the original Faculty building from the 19th century. It is not an entirely new construction but rather an extension of the still-functional transformer station. The club labeled the result as "an impressive, thoughtful, and elegant building."

Candidates for the award are nominated at the discretion of the members and collaborators of the club's domestic council, which consists of more than 20 people. It is not possible to submit a building for consideration. According to the club's chairman Richard Biegel, the council votes on the proposals in secret, with second and third places not being designated.

The project of gardens with a cemetery in Suchdol, Prague represented Prague, designed by the studio Objektor. According to the authors, it is not a cemetery but a public space. The complex, lacking a wall and featuring a low fence, allows the original chapel with the old cemetery to appear as part of the new cemetery.

This year, six buildings from across the country reached the finals, two from Bohemia and four from Moravia. According to the club's vice-chairman Rostislav Švácha, Moravia clearly dominated in the 21st edition.

"Even one of the two buildings in the territory of Bohemia – the new entrance to the theatre in Česká Lípa – was designed by architect Adam Rujbr, originally from Brno," Švácha stated. The new buildings serve both public and private purposes.

By choosing different approaches to the historical environment, the finalists demonstrated that there is not just one solution for the successful integration of a new building into an old context, according to him. "There is not just one way," Švácha said.

The club evaluates realizations based on the contextuality of the new building, its quality, in terms of enhancing the location, protecting existing values, and the bonus that the building brings. Even from this year's edition of the award, it is clear that the club is not nostalgic or only interested in old monuments, Švácha added.

Last year, the club award went to the central polytechnic workshops and gallery of the city of Pardubice, which complemented the original complex of the renovated Winternitz automated mills designed by Josef Gočár according to the design by the Šépka studio. Last year's finalists included no realizations from Prague.

The Club for Old Prague was founded in January 1900 and is thus celebrating its 125th anniversary this year.