Škoda Palace located on street Charvátova
History
The property located on land lot no 718 in the cadastral area of New Town. (currently situated below Building No 35 in Jungmannova) was built at the turn of the 1920s and 1930s on the site of several houses as an office building for the head office of Škoda (Škodovy závody) Plzeň. Professor Pavel Janák is the author of the design; the Nekvasil construction company from Prague's Karlín prepared the detailed engineering design.
The initial plan for land lots nos. 34 and 35 was just to condense the existing development defined primarily by the late Baroque Thun-Salm Palace. Among others, parties interested in development at that site included the Melantrich publishing house that commissioned a design from the architects Bohumil Hypšman and František Roith. Subsequently, however, Škoda purchased both the land lot and the building and architect Mr Tomíček, the chief architect of Nekvasil, a construction and design company from Karlín, was asked to design a solution. He came up with an intriguing design in 1923 but it was not chosen eventually. The Town Hall suggested either calling for tenders for the design or commissioning a selected architect to design the solution. In the end, Pavel Janák, a professor of Prague's Academy of Arts, Architecture and Design was entrusted with the task, perhaps because he had also authored the neighbouring facility, the Adria Palace. His first design of 1924 met with a good response from the heritage authorities (as it envisaged incorporating the existing baroque façade in the new street front), but the client and investor was against it, so only Janák's second design was built.
The building was completed around 1926 and then modified until the 1930s, mainly by remodelling the corner of Jungmannova and Charvátova Streets where a car dealership was built.
The first stage was later followed by stage two on land lot no 719 in the cadastral area of New Town (currently situated below Building No 41 in Charvátova,), which was completed around 1938, if we include the modifications of the second underground level as a civil defence shelter in the project.
For its time, the Palace was a generous development project: its developed area is approximately 5,000 sq m; with two underground and seven aboveground floors the total usable area is almost 28,000 sq m. These spaces are situated around two backyards in order to limit areas without natural daylight and ensure good ventilation. The aboveground floors house offices (in particular, the presentational areas for the CEO Mr Škoda on the second aboveground floor are worth mentioning) while the underground areas included technical and operational background, archives, an extensive vault and the civil defence shelter mentioned above. The building uses seven staircases with lifts.
Škoda Palace currently houses some of the Prague Town Hall Departments, e.g. the departments of Environment, Culture, Heritage Care and Travel, Trade Licences, and Transportation. A new addition that will make communicating with the authority much easier for Prague citizens is the modern filing room on the ground floor.
In October 2016 majority owner of Škoda Palace engaged one of Europe's most highly respected and influential architects Eva Jiřičná. She will be tasked with defining a vision of how this art deco Palace could be converted into a vibrant, inspiring and welcoming contemporary retail and office space, while at the same time respecting the historic value of the Palace's original design.The building's corridor – reminiscent of a passage connecting Jungmannova and Charvátova Streets – underwent only minimum alterations as part of the original plan for the refurbishment of the building and it currently serves as an exhibition hall.
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