Prague will announce an architectural competition for the design of Victory Square

Prague - The Prague Institute of Planning and Development (IPR) will announce an international competition for a study of the traffic and urban planning solution for Vítězné náměstí in Prague 6. The city councilors decided today to initiate this contest. The results of the competition are expected to be announced by October this year and will serve as the basis for preparing a project for the reconstruction of the square.

"The reconstruction of the square must respect the basic regulatory principles of the original plan by Professor Engel," says the proposal, referring to the interwar architect and urban planner Antonín Engel, who developed the urban planning solution for Dejvice Square in the 1920s.

According to IPR head Ondřej Boháč, the competition is to be announced this April, and the results are likely to be known in October. "Then it will be up to Prague how to proceed with it," he told ČTK.

The deputy mayor for urban development, Petra Kolínská (Greens/Trojkoalice), previously stated that the preparatory team was inspired by the transformation of Trafalgar Square in London, which is also heavily trafficked. Ultimately, the competition will only address the public spaces, and not what will be built on the undeveloped plots.

The transformation of the entire area is also connected to the plan to construct a bypass of the square, which should link Evropská and Svatovítská streets. The competition task anticipates its construction, but building is unlikely to start before 2020. The square is also not fully completed. For instance, where the controversial project Polar Bear was supposed to be built, an apartment building is expected to emerge.

Vítězné náměstí was created in 1925 and currently has several roads leading into it - Evropská, Čs. armády, Jugoslávských partyzánů, Svatovítská, and Dejvická. Throughout its history, it has had several names; among other things, from 1952 to 1990, it was called the October Revolution. Among Prague residents, it is commonly referred to as "Kulaťák."