Between Redevelopment and Modernization: The Evolution of Opinions on the Future of Prague’s Gründerzeit Districts between 1958 and 1989

Result code in IS VaVaI

<a href="https://www.isvavai.cz/riv?ss=detail&h=RIV%2F68407700%3A21450%2F19%3A00338393" target="_blank" >RIV/68407700:21450/19:00338393 - isvavai.cz</a>

Result on the web

<a href="http://www.architektura-urbanizmus.sk/index.php/sk/2019-volume-53-no-1-2" target="_blank" >http://www.architektura-urbanizmus.sk/index.php/sk/2019-volume-53-no-1-2</a>

DOI - Digital Object Identifier

—

Result language

čeština

Original language name

Mezi přestavbou a modernizací: Vývoj názorů na budoucnost pražských čtvrtí gründerského města v letech 1958 – 1989

Original language description

In Prague, as in many European metropolises, there are large quarters of urban housing blocks, built in the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century, located in the immediate vicinity of the historical core. In the period of post-Stalinist easing, these quarters faced a serious threat of demolition: considered unhealthy, devoid of value, based on an utterly unrepairable urban structure. The capitalist city was doomed to demolition in favour of a new, socialist environment. Nevertheless, within the three decades between 1958 and 1989, a new attitude was formed within the professional community of architects and urbanists: considerably less radical and more aware of the values of existing urban structures and the limitations of new development. The story of this shift between the concepts oft redevelopment and modernization is the main topic of this paper. The specific Czech version of the redevelopment-modernization dilemma can be framed by the concept of the continuation of technocratic modernity. According to the interpretation of contemporary historians, the trust in expert knowledge and the knowledge-based leadership was one of the main continuities between the post-Stalinist period of the Prague Spring, and the normalization period of the 1970s and 1980s in occupied Czechoslovakia. In this sense, the inability of those in power to deliver as promised – in respect to redevelopment and modernization, both in quality and quantity – represents an important step in the process of delegitimization of state socialism towards the end of 1980s. The break with the first, technocratic modernity was not completed in Czechoslovakia; the process of reflecting on the consequences of its own foundations was violently interrupted by the occupation of 1968, and it was not picked up again until the late 1980s. The rather hidden manifestations of such setting represent an important inner barrier for the project of Czech urban renewal.

Czech name

Mezi přestavbou a modernizací: Vývoj názorů na budoucnost pražských čtvrtí gründerského města v letech 1958 – 1989

Czech description

In Prague, as in many European metropolises, there are large quarters of urban housing blocks, built in the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century, located in the immediate vicinity of the historical core. In the period of post-Stalinist easing, these quarters faced a serious threat of demolition: considered unhealthy, devoid of value, based on an utterly unrepairable urban structure. The capitalist city was doomed to demolition in favour of a new, socialist environment. Nevertheless, within the three decades between 1958 and 1989, a new attitude was formed within the professional community of architects and urbanists: considerably less radical and more aware of the values of existing urban structures and the limitations of new development. The story of this shift between the concepts oft redevelopment and modernization is the main topic of this paper. The specific Czech version of the redevelopment-modernization dilemma can be framed by the concept of the continuation of technocratic modernity. According to the interpretation of contemporary historians, the trust in expert knowledge and the knowledge-based leadership was one of the main continuities between the post-Stalinist period of the Prague Spring, and the normalization period of the 1970s and 1980s in occupied Czechoslovakia. In this sense, the inability of those in power to deliver as promised – in respect to redevelopment and modernization, both in quality and quantity – represents an important step in the process of delegitimization of state socialism towards the end of 1980s. The break with the first, technocratic modernity was not completed in Czechoslovakia; the process of reflecting on the consequences of its own foundations was violently interrupted by the occupation of 1968, and it was not picked up again until the late 1980s. The rather hidden manifestations of such setting represent an important inner barrier for the project of Czech urban renewal.

Type

J_SC - Article in a specialist periodical, which is included in the SCOPUS database

CEP classification

—

OECD FORD branch

60402 - Architectural design

Project

<a href="/en/project/GA17-06915S" target="_blank" >GA17-06915S: Eco-Friendly Tendencies in Czechoslovak Urban and Regional Planning (1965-1990)</a><br>

Continuities

P - Projekt vyzkumu a vyvoje financovany z verejnych zdroju (s odkazem do CEP)

Publication year

2019

Confidentiality

S - Úplné a pravdivé údaje o projektu nepodléhají ochraně podle zvláštních právních předpisů

Name of the periodical

Architektúra a urbanizmus

ISSN

0044-8680

e-ISSN

—

Volume of the periodical

53

Issue of the periodical within the volume

3-4

Country of publishing house

SK - SLOVAKIA

Number of pages

16

Pages from-to

196-211

UT code for WoS article

000503872600011

EID of the result in the Scopus database

2-s2.0-85079648293