Thomas Neumann

The project is about the attitude we express towards our cultural heritage.

The ancient centre of Prague consists of such a wonderful coherence that nearly every intervention of modern times seems to fail. The Gothic and Baroque scenery appears to hinder every touch of contemporary impulse. It is at the same time hearthbreakingly beautiful and cruelly dominant.

Our position is that of the observer.

Being observer - while being part of the scenery - is the leitmotiv of this project.

The project puts itself in the flow of urban demands. It reacts and is pure provocation.

The task was to conceive a new reception hall for the magistrate of the town and an exposition area for its citizens and tourists.

The project follows these terms in a proposal of two autonomous units: the one lying down, the other highly erected .

The reception hall opens with its long sides to the crowded centre and to the more silent backyard of the historic inner market. It invites to be penetrated forming a kind of shelter or bridge to the square.

The free circulation around a hard centre providing necessary infrastrucural needs becomes the theme of the building. The outline is conceived as a light curtain wall to assure a permanent confrontation with the beauty of the town.

The exposition area is conceived as a light tower standing at the side of the reception hall.

The objects to be exposed are numerous: the tidy small object, for example, a piece of a vase from the period of Charles the Great is exposed to the town - being exposed itself and changing its appearance from platform to platform - and is exposed to the visitor, being between object and town, and while rising to the top becoming more and more an object to be exposed because the building dissolves to the top. There is no more place left than for the visitor himself.

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