The Novomlýnská Gate will not be built according to the original design

Prague - The Novomlýnská Gate project, a new building at the end of Revoluční Street by the Vltava River, is unlikely to be realized as designed by the architects. The Ministry of Culture decided in May that the city’s heritage authorities must reassess the building plans. In June, a new investor entered the project, who does not like the building that deviated from the form of traditional city houses. He approached the architects and is seeking a new version of the project.
The Novomlýnská Gate project was intended to conclude Revoluční Street and become a sort of gateway to the city center from the river. The unusual building, which included the demolition of a neo-Renaissance house, now devastated, and the incorporation of a low Baroque house, was designed by the DaM studio, which the investor selected in a small invited competition.
A year ago, the project was presented by Brobosu Properties, which, according to its representative, counted on an investment of around 250 million crowns; it wanted to borrow money from an investment fund for the construction financing. Besides shops and offices, apartments were also planned in the building.
At the end of 2011, the project received approval from Prague’s heritage authorities, but the heritage department of the Ministry of Culture changed the decision six months later as an appellate body. The owner appealed against this, and the matter was dealt with by the Ministry's dispute commission for many months.
Based on its decision, in May of this year, the Ministry of Culture revoked the binding opinion of the city’s heritage department from December 15, 2011, and returned the matter to this department. Prague’s heritage officials should thus re-evaluate the project; given that the new investor, RSJ Private Equity, considers the project too controversial, it is unlikely to proceed.
RSJ Private Equity states that it has reached out to architectural studios, from whose proposals a new version of the project could emerge. It claims it wants to give Prague a new architectural dominant that resonates with the historic center. The investor has begun discussions about a new version of the project at the Club for Old Prague, which was the biggest critic of the original project.
In a place that has been a vacant lot for over 70 years, DaM proposed a structure that is not a traditional city house - it does not have a classic facade with windows. The building has an abstract shape, and the exterior of the building was to be covered with perforated copper-colored sheet metal. The structure was to have a passage that would provide access to a picturesque nook related to Lannova Street.
Many have attempted in the past to resolve the situation in the forecourt of the Štefánik Bridge. Several competitions have been held, and in 2004 architect Daniel Libeskind presented his design for a Salvador Dalí museum in Prague, which did not take much regard for the surrounding buildings.