Smíchov City will honor significant women, with the main focus being on the Madeleine Albright Avenue

Prague - The name of Madeleine Albright will adorn the main kilometer-long pedestrian boulevard of the newly emerging Prague district of Smíchov City. Other streets will also commemorate the memory of significant women who contributed to the fight against totalitarianism in the 20th and 21st centuries. The names of the streets were presented today by the development company Sekyra Group, which is the investor of the project worth 20 billion crowns.

The boulevard named after the American politician of Czech origin, Albright, will culminate with the street named after patron and art collector Meda Mládková. Parallel to the central boulevard, another street will be named after historian and imprisoned dissident Růžena Vacková. There will also be streets named after dissident Jiřina Šiklová, painter Toyen, as well as parks named after Alice and Anna Masaryková and philosopher Hannah Arendt.

The proposal to name six streets, two parks, and a school was submitted to the leadership of Prague 5 by the Sekyra Foundation and the Václav Havel Library with the support of other prominent individuals.

"We want to commemorate significant women who share a lifelong commitment to freedom, democracy, and the fight against totalitarianism. This should be an appeal for gender balance and, in a way, a rectification of historical injustice, considering that less than five percent of the streets in Prague bear the names of women. In its entirety, it will primarily be a tribute to the heroic attitudes and fates of the 20th century," said Luděk Sekyra, the founder of Sekyra Group and Sekyra Foundation, at the press conference.

Albright was born in Smíchov, and according to Michael Žantovský, the exact address where she lived has not yet been determined. "But we are on the trail," said the director of the Václav Havel Library, Žantovský, at the press conference. He read a joint letter from Albright's three daughters, who feel honored that the boulevard will be named after their mother. "She was proud to be born in a city where Franz Kafka wrote, and Václav Havel led the revolution. She always said that she was a proud American and a part of her heart forever remained in Prague. Her name will thus be forever connected with the city she loved," they stated.

Not all streets in Smíchov will bear women's names. The street leading to the school will be named after the writer Josef Škvorecký. This will be followed by a street bordering Smíchov City towards the Smíchov railway station, which will be named after the writer František Langer.

Sekyra also proposes that one of the newly created parks create a 'speakers' corner' similar to London’s Hyde Park, becoming a place for public speeches, discussions, and civic dialogue.

The first phase of Smíchov City has been developing since September 2020 at a cost of 3.5 billion crowns, with a total investment of 20 billion crowns. The district, which will include 400,000 square meters of residential, administrative, commercial, and public spaces, is expected to be completed in 2032.