One of the oldest municipal mills in Horažďovice was brought back to life after many years of decay. The Czech-German Center for Environmental Education, PROUD, was established here. The building is located on the left bank of the Otava River, at the edge of the historical center, and is characterized by two sides – one facing the city, the second facing the river and beyond. Inside, the main common space is a dining hall spread across two floors that serves as a lecture room and a study hall, as well. During the reconstruction, the neglected building was stripped down to a skeleton structure, therefore it kept its historic volume and spatial arrangement, but all the surfaces, openings and the roof are new. The interiors are dominated by wood, the exterior façade shines in a combination of green plaster and blue window frames.

It’s been said many times before, but there are few cities that can boast as many examples of high-quality contemporary architecture as Litomyšl. The reason can be found not only in the open-minded attitude of the municipal authority but mainly in the enlightened decision of the first post-revolution mayor Miroslav Brýdl to establish the function of a municipal architect. And this function has been held by Zdeňka Vydrová since 1992. She managed to continually fulfil the city’s vision (successively represented by other mayors Jan Janeček, Michal Kortyš and Radomil Kašpar) and in cooperation with renowned architects to create a unique collection of buildings both public and private. The long-term contribution of Zdeňka Vydrová for Litomyšl was recognized when she received two awards within one year: a special prize Architect for Community 2016 by ABF, as part of the Architect of the Year Award, and the Ministry of Culture Award for a special contribution in architecture. Since 2015, Zdeňka Vydrová has been working as the municipal architect in Tišnov, too. Is Tišnov going to be the new Litomyšl?

After a long thirteen years, the city of Brno restored the function of the municipal architect. The newly established Brno Architect‘s Department (KAM) should continue in the activities of the former Department of the Chief Architect (ÚHA) managed by Jaroslav Josífek. The ÚHA was dissolved in 2003 and it was replaced with the Department of Planning and Development. An international expert committee recommended experienced architect Michal Sedláček for the Director of KAM, who assumed the office in July 2016. KAM should employ up to fifteen experts by the end of this year and their initial task will be the creation of the new zoning plan or the conception of public space. Another important issue is the form (and location) of the train station. How does Michal Sedláček see the future of Brno?

Chrudim is the second largest city of the Pardubice Region and its history dates back to the 13th century. Today, the city is part of Hradec-Pardubice agglomeration with a population over 23,000 inhabitants. The city center is a conservation zone. The municipal architect Marek Janatka has been trying to cultivate public areas for six years. He organized a successful architecture competition for the new Education and Visitor Center Podhůra that should become an entrance gate to the natural reserve Železné hory. Apart from his work for Chrudim he’s also been active in raising public awareness. He and Václav Zůna wrote a study, Proposal of Solution for the Institute of Municipal Architect in Brno, that offered a complex perspective on the position of a municipal architect in the CR and became a basis for the establishment of the Brno Architect‘s Department.

Originally a farming village in Central Bohemia, Dolní Břežany was on its way to becoming one of the uniform satellite villages on the capital’s outskirts at the beginning of the new millennium. There were no public facilities, jobs, and no square for the rapidly growing number of inhabitants. The cooperation of architect Anna Šlapetová Kovářová with the local authority began with the successful regulation for one of the developing localities, and the project of a new center born from an architecture competition. After thirteen years, both parties involved are satisfied with the results of the joint cooperation. The last large project was a regeneration of a brownfield transformed into a scientific research center ELI. Today, there are 3,900 people living in Břežany who can use the square to meet each other, the new park for the recreation, and basic public facilities appropriate for a smaller town.

Last year, the new building of the international laser research center ELI Beamlines was built in Dolní Břežany, a village on the southern outskirts of Prague with a population of four thousand. The core of the building is formed by publicly accessible glassed atrium connected to administrative part, multifunctional building, and laser technologies facility housing laboratories and experimental halls. The extensive building program is divided both functionally and formally which helps the building to integrate into the surrounding smaller development. On the other hand, a light shading structure spanning the whole complex works as a unifying element. This research complex, a technically demanding realization of which was partly financed by the EU, will specialize in developing and testing new methods applicable in biology, medicine, or astrophysics.

The Main Bus Terminal in Litoměřice, an important public space in the vicinity of a conservation area, finally met its awaited transformation. The solution continues in the conception proposed in 2007 by the municipal architect Jan Mužík and preserves its precious sightlines towards the historical center. A single continuous structure, almost eighty meters long, roofs the longitudinal stands of the public transportation buses and skew stands of regional buses, and systematically integrates elements of city furniture and information panels. As part of the modernization green vegetation was planted and surfaces were treated, and a new building of public toilettes and parking was built.

Mnichovo Hradiště, formerly Hradiště nad Jizerou, is located in the Central Bohemian Region, 70 kilometers northeast of Prague, and it is an entrance gate to Český ráj. The city was founded in the middle of the 12th century around the Cistercian monastery, in the place of a former ancient Slavic settlement. A large part of its history is associated with the House of Waldstein who lived there in a Baroque castle with Renaissance foundations. The character of the city was agricultural from the beginning, more significant growth came only with the development of industry and transportation at the turn of the 19th and 20th century and in the last three decades. Today, there are over 8,500 inhabitants in the city. After one year in the position, the municipal architect Jakub Chuchlík has achieved his first success – an architecture competition for the revitalization of Masaryk Square, which is part of the central conservation zone.

When you say Rožnov pod Radhoštěm, most people will recall the town’s open-air folk museum, one of the largest and oldest in Europe. Called the Heart of Wallachia for its peculiar atmosphere, the town with almost 17,000 inhabitants is located in the Zlín Region, in the picturesque River Bečva valley, alongside the 1,129-meter-high Radhošť Mountain. The former timber town has been transformed into a modern tourist center in the last decade and since this May, its development has been controlled by the new municipal architect Jan Horký.

The history of the royal town of Písek goes back to the middle of the 13th century when it was founded as a village near gold panning sites on the left bank of Otava River, approximately 100 kilometers south of Prague. That’s also the origin of the town’s name (Písek = “sand”) and the town’s wealth; at the beginning of the 16th century, Písek was one of the most important Czech settlements. Further significant growth came during the industrial revolution in the late 1800s; the postwar era brought along the development of industry and the town’s outskirts. The center with the oldest preserved bridge in the CR has been a conservation zone since 1990. Today, Písek has a population nearing 30,000 and in 2012 it was declared to be a town with the best living conditions in the category of medium-sized cities. The function of a municipal architect has a long tradition in Písek. Before the revolution in 1989, this position was held by Josef Hermoch, after him Václav Adámek, and for the last twenty years, it’s been held by Josef Zábranský.

Jablonné nad Orlicí is located in the Pardubice Region, in the foothills of the Orlické Mountains. It was first populated in the 13th century but is was promoted to a town by Emperor Franz Joseph I only in 1906. Between the two world wars, industrial production developed rapidly here, for example one of the first telephone and radio factories was founded here. After the occupation of the Sudetenland, Jablonné became a frontier area. Postwar reconstruction is also associated with development of industry. The central part of the town has been a conservation zone since 1977 with the prominent landmark of the Baroque church of St. Bartholomew at the confluence of rivers Orlička and Tichá Orlice. Michal Fišer describes what the role of a municipal architect is in the town with a population of almost 3,300 inhabitants.

Třeboň, with a population of approximately 8,400, is located in South Bohemia, between the fishponds Svět and Rožmberk. This historic seat founded in the middle of the 12th century was in its heyday during the peak era of fishpond management in the 16th century and it’s still an important center of fish farming and fishing today. But it’s also an important spa and tourist center of South Bohemia and nature reserve Třeboňsko. The town’s center with Augustinian monastery, Renaissance castle, and a square with Baroque and Renaissance gables, has been a conservation area since 1976. For more than twenty years, Aleš Valder has been the municipal architect of Třeboň, significantly contributing to the positive image of the town, and since 2015 he has also held the position
of Town Hall Secretary.

Žďár nad Sázavou is a regional city with 21,500 inhabitants. It is located in Vysočina Region, in the picturesque landscape of Českomoravská vrchovina on the border of Bohemia and Moravia. Although it is a historic settlement founded in the 13th century around the Cistercian monastery with the Church of St. John of Nepomuk listed as UNESCO World Heritage, the current form of the city is marked by a rapid increase of population due to the development of industry in the early 1900’ when Žďár became a modern, administrative and business center with new housing estates built around it. The municipal architect Zbyněk Ryška started working here only in January and his position gradually assumed a concrete form.

The city of precious stones, Turnov, is located in the Liberec Region, at the edge of the natural reserve Český ráj. The city is divided into two parts by Jizera River. Historically, those two parts belonged to different dominions. The city has a naturally grown urban structure and a well-preserved historical core with the dominant Church of the Nativity of Virgin Mary, and a population of about 13,400. Varnsdorf is a bit larger (population 15,600) and is located in the Ústí Region, in the southern part of Šluknov Hook. It was founded in 1849 by joining Starý Varnsdorf with five surrounding villages which is still apparent today in its character. Varnsdorf wasn’t promoted to a city until 1868. In the last two centuries, the city was formed by the textile industry. Both cities are connected by the municipal architect, Boris Šonský.

The Czech Chamber of Architects has recently published a text for public discussion before the regional elections. It’s another material to be used in political practice, after the Policy of Architecture and the Building Culture, adopted by the Czech Government in 2015; text for the municipal elections; and Architecture for the Country. This text contained, among others, an inspirational comment about the regional architect. We offer you a summary of this text followed by an interview with its main initiator Petr Lešek.

In the Netherlands, there is the so-called rijksbouwmeester which can be translated as imperial master constructor. It is a function of the state-wide, government architect incorporated in the structure of The Ministry of the Interior and Kingdom Relations. This position is taken very seriously in the Netherlands and the government architect is supposed to not only consult on architecture and social housing policy, but also independently support the creation of high-quality architecture in the entire country. In 2008–2011, Liesbeth van der Pol, co‑founder of the renowned studio Dok Architecten, worked as the government architect. The subject of the state architect was part of an interview made on the occasion of her lecture in Prague.

For most of the Czech cities, the twentieth century was an era of transformation. The need for new urban planning conceptions caused by the development of industry and traffic together with the growth of population in cities, led to the establishment of institutions that thoroughly dealt with planning. They were usually managed by a chief architect who represented a professional guarantee but not a co-author or ideological author of a land-use plan, and his role was always related to the current political representation. How has the role of the municipal architected changed, as well as his competences and responsibilities in Prague, Brno and Hradec Králové throughout the 20th century?

Luigi Snozzi has been influencing the form of the Swiss town Monte Carasso for almost forty years. His work here started with the transformation of a former monastery into a school. His zoning plans of the historical center, and later of the whole town, were substantial. These plans stressed compactness of the development, a clear definition of public spaces, as well as regulations that were reflected in the architectonic quality of the new architecture. Although Snozzi’s work in Monte Carasso may appear as the result of a despotic reign, it was based on trust he had won both with the town authority and its inhabitants.

The county city of Trenčín is located in western Slovakia, 12 km off the border with the Czech Republic. It is one of the oldest Slovakian cities with records from the 11th century. It has a strategic position in the narrow valley of the Váh River and its urbanism is significantly determined by the morphology of the terrain. Trenčín used to be a city of trade fairs, textile and engineering industry, current population is over 55,000 inhabitants. An important milestone in the city’s history was the search for a new planning vision that inspired the initiative Trenčín is You. Martin Beďatš spoke to us about this and the role of  the municipal architect.

During its three years of existence, the initiative Trenčín is You (Trenčín si Ty) has managed to engage hundreds of citizens and experts in the city’s development through participative planning, to obtain grant worth 80,000 euros, and to announce an international ideas competition with fifty-nine entries from all over the world. After discussions, workshops, and analyses, five projects acknowledged by the jury have become the basis for a strategic document Program for the Development of Trenčín. The vision of the city’s future, a solution for traffic barriers, as well as a connection of the historical center with the Váh River, should all be included in this document for the new land-use plan for the central zone of the city. Because that was the aim of the whole process of participative planning and the competition itself.