DOX presents ideas on how to transform Prague's spaces

Prague - The DOX Centre for Contemporary Art will offer its visitors an exhibition of architectural designs that transform certain public spaces in Prague starting Thursday. Interested parties can see how architects would beautify, for example, the area near the National Theatre or in front of the National Gallery in Holešovice. The information was published by the gallery on its website. The exhibition entitled Urban Interventions Prague 2010 will run until August 2.
    The exhibition organizers contacted over 60 architectural studios and workshops in February, and the project was open to all interested parties. A total of about 80 ideas were gathered. "The task of the architectural teams was to identify a specific public space within the urban fabric of Prague that they consider problematic and can be improved through architectural intervention," the organizers state on their website. There were no restrictions on the scale of the intervention, but the condition was that the design must be feasible.
    The interventions highlight that some public spaces do not function, yet there are solutions for how they could work. They also reveal the potential of places that people walk by unnoticed every day. Ten proposals focus on adjustments to rivers, while another ten modify transport structures.
    Part of the exhibition is also the project Database of Other Prague Locations, which aims to engage exhibition visitors to look around and see if they know of more problematic places. If they photograph these places and send a brief description to [email protected], they will become part of the exhibition.
    The exhibition is based on a project that took place in Bratislava. The authors are Matúš Vallo and Oliver Sadovský, and the curator of the Prague exhibition is architect, critic, theorist, and architecture promoter Adam Gebrian. The exhibition is organized by DOX in collaboration with the civic association Urban Interventions, which was created for the needs of the original project in Bratislava. According to the organizers, the exhibition featuring Bratislava's proposals was positively received and reportedly became the most visited exhibition of the Slovak National Gallery in 2008. One of the proposals will be realized in the Slovak capital.