Two buildings of the University of Chemistry and Technology in Dejvice will be connected by bridges made of glass and steel

Prague – The historic buildings of the University of Chemistry and Technology (VŠCHT) in Studentská Street in Prague's Dejvice will be connected by two bridges made of glass and steel. The first of them, 25 meters long and 4.6 meters high, will be installed by builders on Wednesday, March 11. The bridge will be transported to the site in one piece along Evropská Street and then placed between the buildings with the help of a crane. The school hopes to install the second one approximately two weeks later. The construction, costing 60 million crowns, aims to increase the comfort for students as well as fire safety. Michal Janovský, spokesperson for VŠCHT, announced this today.

The decision to build the bridges was made by VŠCHT in 2017 when it announced an architectural competition. Out of three competition proposals, the design by the ov-a studio was selected as the winner. The funding for the construction comes from grants from the Ministry of Finance, Janovský stated.

According to him, preparations for the installation of the bridges have been underway for several months. "The structures of the bridges were manufactured in the workshop and will undergo a thirty-kilometer transportation in their final form. After they are placed on the pillars, they will be clad with glass elements," said VŠCHT architect Petr Šichtanc. The installation of each bridge should be completed in about a day, the spokesperson added. The construction will be overseen by the company Metrostav.

According to Šichtanc, the construction should not significantly affect the regular operations on campus. During the installation of the bridges on the pillars, the entire street will be occupied twice and then several times a section of the pedestrian zone will be temporarily closed, he explained.

According to the spokesperson, 60 tons of steel were used in the construction of both bridges. The weight of one bridge will be approximately 40 tons. The footbridges will be 25 meters long, 4.6 meters high, and three to five meters wide, he described. Two reinforced concrete pillars, which will support the bridge, will be attached to the facades of the existing buildings. "The pillars will be clad with plinth stone and visually unified with the facade of the building," Janovský added. The bridges will be covered.

According to the spokesperson, the idea of connecting both VŠCHT buildings is not new. "Architect Antonín Engel already accounted for this in his design of the Dejvice campus from the 1930s. However, it was never realized, and under current conditions, it is no longer possible to follow this design, as it was based on massive brick structures on pillars and arches that would significantly interfere with pedestrian traffic and restrict transportation," he explained.

In the Dejvice campus, in addition to VŠCHT, there is also the Czech Technical University (ČVUT), the Institute of Organic Chemistry and Biochemistry of the Czech Academy of Sciences, and the Catholic Faculty of Charles University. Tens of thousands of university students spend their time there.

Between 2006 and 2008, a new building for the National Technical Library was constructed in the campus parking lot for more than two billion crowns. In 2011, a new building for the Faculty of Architecture was completed nearby, costing more than one billion crowns. The last major change on campus was the opening of the new building of the Czech Institute of Informatics, Robotics and Cybernetics (CIIRC) of ČVUT in 2017, which cost approximately 1.5 billion crowns.