The 11th year of the architecture festival is offering the buildings and spaces of our hospital for the first time. This year, the Chapel of the Holy Cross in the maternity hospital at Apolinář is a new addition.

Open House kicks off today, May 12th, with a series of accompanying programs – debates, lectures, guided tours, walks and exhibitions. The architecture festival will culminate on the weekend of May 17th and 18th with the opening of 125 normally inaccessible buildings and spaces throughout Prague. Among them are the Urology Clinic, the Ceramics Salon at the Occupational Medicine Clinic, the Chapel of the Holy Cross and the Central Boiler House. The motto of this year’s festival is Legacy of the past, challenges of the future. The topic invites us to reflect not only on the architecture of the past and its legacy, but mainly on what will be left behind for future generations. Timeless buildings? A city that will be able to face new challenges? Or will we leave something unusable here, incapable of transformation?

Entrance to the buildings is free of charge and requires no prior registration, always from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Tours will be conducted continuously throughout the opening hours, or at pre-announced times (tours for people with visual and hearing disabilities, children, etc.)

VFN has a lot to offer

VFN central boiler room, Wenzigova 2083/1, Prague 2

The VFN heat supply boiler room is a lesser-known technical building by architect Karel Prager. This futuristic pyramid-shaped object with a tall chimney from 1993 is the only completed part of Prager's extensive project for the new campus of the university hospital.

Ceramic Lounge, Na Bojišti 1771/1, Prague 2

Behind the facade of the Neo-Renaissance corner building of the former VFN sanatorium hides a world-unique ceramic lounge. It was designed by Jan Kotěra in 1914 as part of a luxurious sanatorium for the rest and relaxation of mobile patients. The space, in which plant and geometric art nouveau elements are combined, is decorated with tiles with leaf and floral glazes. There is an ornamental tile on the floor. The dominant feature of the room is the fountain with the sculpture of the Woman above the Spring by Stanislav and Vojtěch Suchard.

Clinic of Urology

In the early 1970s, a heritage reserve was declared, which also included the New Town, and the architects had the task of creating a building that, with its dimensions and materials, would appropriately connect with the surrounding historic buildings. The result is a brutalist building in the form of a fragmented block, on the facade of which bands of windows alternate with bands of exposed concrete and ceramic tiles. Prominent artists participated in the decoration of the clinic, such as Stanislav Libenský and Jaroslava Brychtová, whose sculpture with a family motif still decorates the entrance hall.

Chapel of the Holy Cross at the Department of Gynecology, Obstetrics and Neonatology

It is part of one of the oldest maternity hospitals in the world, which celebrated 150 years since its foundation. It is one of the most architecturally interesting parts of the building, designed by architect Josef Hlávka. The ceiling is formed by a star-shaped vault, which is led to the central column, and there you will also find a marble baptismal font, a marble altar, a neo-Gothic oak confessional and a choir with an organ. The painted decoration was designed by the Czech painter Adolf Liebscher together with Adolf Körber in 1902.
A detailed program and other interesting facts can be found at Open House Prague