Mánes will be repaired by the company Skanska for 120 million, to be completed next year

Prague - The functionalist building of the Prague Mánes will be repaired for 120 million crowns by the construction company Skanska. The work is expected to be completed by the middle of next year. The gallery will open to its first visitors at the turn of September and October, Martin Pavala from the Czech Visual Arts Foundation (NČVU), which owns the building, said today to ČTK.
    "The result of the tender is an exceedingly pleasant surprise for us," Pavala said. "The final price is 30 million crowns lower than our project budget," he added. Construction work will finish in June of next year, and during the summer, the foundation will complete the interiors and work on the preparation of the opening exhibition.
    The foundation plans to pay for one third of the repairs from its own resources. It has already organized several benefit auctions to help with financing. For the rest, it secured a bridging loan and is looking for sponsors. Repairs to the gallery were originally supposed to begin last June, but were postponed twice due to a lack of funds.
    The project by the HMArchitekti studio does not involve radical interventions. The historical building on the Vltava riverbank is to return architecturally and functionally to the 1930s.
    After the reconstruction, Mánes is expected to become a significant European institution with multifunctional halls offering programs across various artistic genres. With a restaurant and café, terraces overlooking the Vltava, which have been a part of Czech modern history, and a piano that Jaroslav Ježek played.
    The functionalist building was designed at the request of the Mánes Association of Visual Artists by Otakar Novotný, a student of the famous architect Jan Kotěra. The construction was completed in 1930. Since the beginning of the 1990s, the building had been the subject of restitution disputes. The Supreme Court ultimately designated the Czech Visual Arts Foundation as its owner.