Praha 1 approved the agreement regarding Miloš Forman Square

Prague - Prague 1 will join the memorandum of the capital city and the owners of the former Intercontinental hotel and nominate its representatives to the jury of the competition for the design of the adjacent Miloš Forman Square. This was approved by the representatives of the municipal district this week. The opposition and the local association Citizens of Prague 1 criticize the approach, arguing that it contradicts previous resolutions of the representatives.

The square named after Miloš Forman is located next to the currently reconstructed hotel, which will open in the spring under the new name Fairmont Golden Prague Hotel (hotel Fairmont Zlatá Praha). The hotel and its surroundings were purchased in 2019 by entrepreneurs Oldřich Šlemr, Eduard Kučera, and Pavel Baudiš through the family office R2G, who subsequently presented a reconstruction and environmental adjustment project, including a new building on the square.

This has triggered a wave of criticism among local residents, which Prague 1 and the city council joined during the last electoral term. The construction permit for the new building was ultimately revoked by the Ministry of Regional Development based on an appeal due to non-compliance with the zoning plan. The Prague City Council recently approved a proposal for a plan change, which was submitted by the hotel owners and would allow the construction.

The city leadership also approved an agreement with the hotel owners nearly a year ago, which does not exclude the new building. The memorandum has now also been approved by the representatives of Prague 1 along with the assignment for an architectural and urban competition, from which the future appearance of the square is to arise. Although the current wording of the memorandum does not directly mention the new building, the competition assignment refers to it as a possible solution. According to the documents for the representatives, the competition is to be announced at the end of March, with results known in September. Prague 1, along with the city council, will be co-commissioners of the competition and will have representatives in the jury.

The involvement in the competition is criticized by the opposition group Prague 1 for Ourselves. According to their statement, the conditions are formulated in a way that would favor the placement of the building on the square. "The leadership of both the capital city and the municipal district is resigning from the current protection of the square as a public space and is hurrying to join the competition without insisting that the condition should be the non-construction of the square," the group stated on Facebook.

Tomáš Bajusz, the chairman of the association Citizens of Prague 1, who has been fighting against the construction on the square for a long time, expressed a similar stance. According to the association, the approval of the memorandum is in direct contradiction to two earlier resolutions in which the representatives of Prague 1 rejected any construction on the site. "The memorandum and its annex contain clear references to the construction on Miloš Forman Square. According to the approved memorandum, the winning competition proposal will serve as a basis for changing the zoning plan. To maintain non-buildability, it is not necessary to change the zoning plan," stated Bajusz.

The Intercontinental Hotel was built in a brutalist style on Paris Street between 1968 and 1974 in collaboration with three architectural collectives led by Karel Filsak. It was the first international five-star hotel in the former Czechoslovakia and is among the architecturally significant new buildings in the city center.