Michael Backes

The Slav Epic

The Slav Epic is a series of twenty monumental canvases painted by the czech artist Alfons Mucha. It presents themes of the slavic and especially the czech history and mythology. After finishing his work on the series which took him almost twenty years, Mucha donated the paintings to the city of Prague provided that an appropriate shelter is built. But at that time as well as now its art-historical value is controversially discussed and therefore a museum dedicated to the Epic doesn't seem to obtain approval. As the family of Mucha has a right to reclaim the paintings if they are not on display by 2010, a solution has to be found.
The design conceives itself as a fulfilment of the demands given by the programme. It tries to avoid a symbolic architecture and proposes a machine for storing and viewing the series. On an urban scale the building defines a border on the western side of the Letnà-plateau.
The building is divided into two main parts - one elevated structure to store the paintings, the other structure accommodates a viewing room and auxiliary functions. The functional detachment of storage and space for visitors is due to the fact that the building is intended to be a viewable depot. If there are no visitors the door of the depot can be shut and the amount of space that has to be climatised is reduced to the minimised space of the depot.

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