Tea house on a lighting column by H3T Architects

“Look, the horizontal somehow affects our position in the world that exists, in that tangible world that immediately surrounds us. However, the vertical affects precisely those possibilities we have somehow in the spiritual sphere, you see. Look up. Look. Look up and think.” (introductory words from the film Wild Bees)

Not only in Prague and other cities but simply all over the territory of the Czech Republic, there are many places that have lost their original purpose, no one uses them, and yet they are formally excluded from public space. Often, they are off-limits or cannot be accessed, frequently they are behind a fence, barbed wire, or under the watch of security, and some of them are not even allowed to be photographed.

On an old, unused steel lighting pole above the tracks of the freight part of the Praha - Libeň station, we built a tea house. It is a simple structure that will only remain in its place for a limited time. The wooden construction is anchored to the pole's platform by steel cables. The wood used comes from the demolished winter stadium on Štvanice.

This is an invitation to visit. The tea house is intended for those who can deal with heights and manage the physically demanding climb to the top of the pole. The view that awaits all the daring ones is definitely worth the effort!

Interestingly, the small structure is applied in the originally bleak passages on the east-west axis. The tea house crowns the dominant pole, and the whole place gains a lively detail. In views from north to south, the entire mass of the house is revealed more gently or completely disappears.