The František Lýdie Gahura designed memorial, opened one year after the death of Tomáš Baťa, is considered Zlín’s most valuable constructivist monument and the high point of Bata architecture. Rebuilt as a concert hall with an art gallery in the 1950s, it lost all of its original architectural qualities. Had it remained as such Tomáš Bata’s name would have been erased from memory. But, a rigorous renovation of the original memorial appearance has been in the works for eighteen long years, striving for simplicity and stripping away all expendable equipment. Therefore, all the operational, technological and service features are located outside the building. The purpose of the memorial is to highlight the experiences of space and light, a suspension of time, and tranquility. Given the heritage-protected status of the building, the renovation has put great emphasis on the quality of the construction and restoration work.

There is a critical perspective in architectural design facing forward and backward. The attribute “post-digital” refers to such a reflection in a situation where computational tools have become an integral part of design, realization and use.

The term “post-digital” refers to the apparently disordered current situation where most human activity is affected by computerization and digitization. Post-digital is not the antithesis to digital in the way postmodern was to modern, it’s not its renouncement, nor is it a comeback of the analog. It’s an informed (critical), creative continuation of the digital in the hybrid space of collaboration between machine and human, digital and analog, communication and material, global and local, generic and specific, high and low, developed and developing, industrially manufactured and DIY.

The intention to build a new government district on the Prague periphery and move some of the state institutions currently residing in the city center there, has been mentioned by the Czech media several times since 2017. From what the Prime Minister and the Office for Government Representation in Property Affairs are saying, it is deemed to be a problem-free managerial decision that the target locality will benefit from. The site and most of the concrete parameters remain unclear. But what is already obvious, is the clear depoliticization of the problem through the emphasis on economic efficiency and conceptual analogy to university and corporate campuses on the urban peripheries.

How will Czechia look in one hundred years? What topics will be shaping the conversation and what impact will they have on the built environment? How will we live, travel, work, communicate? And will we be here at all? We’ve asked selected professionals from the fields of architecture, urbanism, economics, transport, environmental studies, sociology, and journalism to share their visions of the future.