Reclaim Žižkov Master's Thesis (part 1)

RECLAIM PRAGUE

A COLLECTIVE LIVING

NETWORK

MARTIN MRÁZ

UNIVERSITY OF LIECHTENSTEIN

WS2021

RECLAIM PRAGUE

A COLLECTIVE LIVING

NETWORK

Student: Martin Mráz

Matriculation number 170113

Master's Thesis to obtain the degree "Master of Science in Architecture"

University of Liechtenstein, Institute of Architecture and Planning, Fuerst-FranzJosef-Strasse,9490 Vaduz, Liechtenstein

Supervisors

Clarissa Rhomberg

Peter Staub

Term of work

WS 20/21

Date of submission

14.1.2021

To my parents for raising me to improvise To Michal for inspiring me to adventures To Gabi and Sami for tribal support

ABSTRACT

The political hot potato of gentrification afflicts Prague like many major cities, yet the district of Zizkov is uniquely placed to combat the ensuing displacement of people and culture. Formerly a working class neighbourhood known for its vibrant social scene and progressive community, Zizkov’s dilapidated buildings and small businesses began to succumb to market pressures that saw private development push locals out. This community’s activist and, sometimes, subversive cultural milieu offered some recourse, however, giving rise to Reclaim Prague, a designed act of defiance to take back ownership of people’s urban future through collective living. Adjacent to and in partnership with the Zizkov district town hall, Reclaim Prague is a project aiming to seed a collective housing network from vacant municipal buildings. The proposal transforms the block into a new micro-centre, a mix of affordable housing, retail, entertainment and education program, high quality green and flexible spaces, and reconfigured access to fuse the centrality to its surroundings. An emphasis on participation and democratic processes strives to give the inhabitants a greater voice within the city through their concerted efforts. This thesis is about reclaiming the city of Prague for its citizens, to create meaningful change through systematic support of civic activity. This project endeavors to answer the question: In the context of Prague’s housing crisis, how can the architecture of collective living play its part in creating a desirable, affordable, and robust city?

Fig.1 RECLAIM PRAGUE SCOPE (Mráz, 2020)

RECLAIM PRAGUE

This thesis follows up Reclaim Prague, a preliminary proposal of a collective living network promoting affordable housing for Praguers. Reclaim Prague introduced Prague as one city of many which are experiencing a housing crisis. This crisis is driven by the global financialization of housing, a process in which housing has become the subject of profitable investment, especially rentable for financial institutions after the crisis of 2008. Most troubling is how city life becomes unaffordable to regular-income earners, due to the rising housing prices. Prague's extremely privatized housing stock lacks the necessary diversity for making fast and efficient housing policies.

A popular cure for the housing crisis is the concept of collective living. This umbrella term describes different setups where people live together without necessarily being related. It is fast becoming a desirable living situation for many urban citizens, where people have chosen to create cooperative homes where they pool resources, share spaces, and build strong social bonds within a community. Collective living is an alternative to the highly individualized urban societies of the modern West. It addresses the problem of unaffordable living, offers respite from loneliness, and fosters personal responsibility and democratic decision making.

For many cities, collective housing plays an important role in their housing politics. Especially during the ongoing pandemic, the homogenous systems prove to be fragile. Collective housing projects are a key addition to diversity of every city's housing stock, no matter if they are Self-made or supported by the city. Generally, they offer more stability, and on top of that, tend to follow high ecological standards and to mix housing with other public uses. In the bigger picture, these projects help to provide affordable housing, cultivate urban development, and create robust cities that are dense, walkable, and desirable for living.

Reclaim Prague seeked a systematic approach to allow collective living projects to become commonplace. With the focus on support of civic activity, alternative financing, and shortening the construction process, Reclaim Prague aims to convert vacant municipal buildings into affordable collective housing via a partnership with the municipality. By converting vacant buildings instead of building from scratch, we would shorten the construction process, lower the costs, and approach real cooperation between the city and its citizens. The long-term vision is to assemble a larger number of non-profit projects into a network of semi-autonomous units. This model allows the city’s property to retain its land value whilst providing affordable housing without a large investment.

This sub-chapter is a summary of the author's preliminary study Reclaim Prague (Mráz, 2020)

MUNICIPAL EMPTY BUILDINGS

every building is an independent unit in the network

network decission making via online platform apartment swap is possible

undeveloped plots or nearby flats are could be a future potential

affordable collective housing

building is part of the network

city

city provides an empty building for rent

wealth pool

refurbishment of municipal empty building

refurbished building

property raising in value paying rents

people organize money

share in the wealth pool

investment paying up formed collective social investors / new tenants

wealth pool filling up

Fig.2 RECLAIM PRAGUE DIAGRAM

(Mráz, 2020)

PRAGUE STRATEGIES

Shortly after completion of Reclaim Prague, the Prague municipality announced a plan to support Baugruppe projects - self-made non-profit housing projects, built on municipal land. Baugruppen, or building cooperatives, are brand new to the Czech system and Prague municipality communicates its developing phase promptly and in detail.

In principle, the municipality offers land to forming Baugruppe collectives, who apply in the public competition (proposing budget, schedule, financing model, architectural solution, and personnel composition of the collective) .The winning collective gains the "right to build", realizes the building and a percentage of the apartments built are claimed by the municipality to enlarge its housing portfolio. The legislative framework of the collective is developed by the municipality as well as the whole rights and duties distribution and the financing model. The city is the initiator, sets the rules and is the guarantor.

Here, the emphasis is put on sustainability of this model, where no side is losing in any case. The collective only pays the building, not the land, which cuts the initial deposit dramatically. The bank loan will start to be repaid only after the house has been finished, and up to a period of forty years. Maximum of ninety nine years is set for the land rent, and after (or during) that period, either the collective buys the land, the municipality buys the house, or any in-between agreement is made. The right of the collective to the rights of the collective's members are then also balanced. The municipality in the long term either gains money to buy more land, or gains municipal flats, and, most importantly, gains affordable housing for its citizens. The citizens that are not involved are not disadvantaged, because anti speculative mechanisms disable profiting from this model. Plus, affordable housing in their neighborhoods means healthier environment on the bigger scale.

Prague municipality finally acknowledges the housing crisis and is willing to intervene. Developing a flexible legislative framework for a non-profit type of housing collective, fair to all sides was needed and together with a financing system backed-up by the municipality gives credibility to the proposal of Reclaim Prague. Regardless of the various advantages the new model brings, the agenda of Reclaim Prague remains relevant and acknowledging the opportunities, Reclaim Prague sticks to the initial concept of refurbishing vacant municipal buildings into a Collective Living Network.

This sub-chapter draws on the presentation of institute for Planning and Development in CAMP (CAMP, 2020)

LARGE HISTORICAL VALUE, IMPORTANT LOCATION

(author's composition, (Google Maps, n.d.))

LARGE OBJECTS WITH POLITICALLY COMPLICATED BACKGROUND

REGULAR OBJECTS

LAND RESERVES

Fig.3 REASONS FOR VACANCY

EMPTY HOUSES

Reclaim Prague presented a list of vacant municipal buildings considered for the design task with certain criteria assigned and a pre-selection. In order to make the final decision, further exploration had to be done. Firstly, in recent years the awareness of vacant buildings was raised significantly in Czechia. That can be largely explained by activity of the Empty Houses collective, which created an open database of empty buildings all around the country, and initiated various events around them, such as walks, or temporary programs. Architecture Days, an annual event, many times addressed the value of empty objects. Simultaneously, various longer-term projects took place. Old barracks were turned into a cultural hotspot by cooperation of a collective and municipality. An abandoned clinic was turned into an autonomous social center by a newly formed collective, despite the municipality's unwillingness.

Due to that fact, many of the empty buildings we find are already a point of attention. Some are yet fully abandoned, some only activate the ground floor while the top is empty, and some buildings yet in use seem abandoned due to the lack of maintenance. Another criteria to organize them would be the reason for their vacancy. Some stand in prominent locations and have large historical value, which makes it difficult to find them. Some are large objects, such as schools, palaces, or former institutions with complicated political background and ownership, that block their usage. Some are regular objects with standard historical value, to which the municipality is actively finding a new purpose. And finally, some objects are rather guarding the land under for the future. This summary influenced the final site selection and directed the research towards investigating networks surrounding these buildings.

SITE SELECTION

The final site selection revolved around the vacant buildings, followed by the criteria of location, infrastructure, and social and political networks. Working with buildings of large historical value would open different topics, than Reclaim Prague aims for, therefore the focus is narrowed to the other three categories. Location in the very center also goes beyond the scope of Reclaim Prague, while the outskirts do not yet possess the social energy and infrastructure, therefore the wider center is the territory upon which to search. Within this territory, districts with rather active history and open political representation are desired. Žižkov district, pre-selected already in the preliminary study, proved to be viable in all these criteria.

(author's

Fig.4 POSITION IN PRAGUE

RIOT FOR SALE [1]

Žižkov is one of the nineteenth-century workers districts, situated in close proximity to the center. Vladimír Turner from the City Memory platform describes Žižkov as a place that has always attracted bohemians and figures. Life takes place here in pubs, where an underground culture abounds, whose authenticity attracts tourists and businesses. In the podcast about Žižkov, he reveals the stories of the post-war, postrevolutionary and modern history of the district.

In the post-war Žižkov, people lived poorly, as described by local witnesses. She grew up in a one-bedroom apartment. They rented the bedroom to the tenants and lived in the kitchen themselves. The apartments had no bathrooms or access to water, and the toilet was shared in the hallway. As children, they played on the vacant plots and among the children there was a hatred for the neighboring district Vinohrady perceived as the rich neighborhood.

The post-revolutionary character of the district is described by a local man in his fifties and a former pub owner as a place of community and tolerance brought about by the misery of local conditions. This lifestyle is accompanied by informality, countless absurd stories, pub fights and underground concerts. Apart from the lifestyle, coexistence with the Roma minority was characteristic. Yet, the privatization after 1989 killed the social stratification, as the Roma minority could not afford buying their apartments.

Today's Žižkov describes Filip and Kristýna, working students, who's social circle has close to be called the contemporary riot scene. Filip works in the Roof social bistro employing homeless people and people with criminal records. In the bistro, they try to keep prices low to push against the negative changes of Žižkov and offer the locals a place to eat affordably. Filip and Kristýna are close to the autonomous social center Klinika (Clinique), an anticapitalist cultural meeting point previously described in the preliminary study. Today, the locals meet confused groups of tourists searching for pubs and Airbnb's every day.

These three stories have a common red thread leading to the same knot. Apartment of the oldest interviewee transferred into the housing cooperative, for which she could not afford to pay (19 000 EUR)without her daughters support. Her pension is not high enough to pay rent at other places. The former pub owner had to sell the building to a Canadian firm, which is happy to have an authentic pub on their property. Filip and Kristýna live in a collective apartment, which they have been passing on in their social circle for eight years. Eight people live here in five rooms, partly from the choice to live in a community and partly from economic necessity. Kristýna's

This sub-chapter is a summary of a podcast by City Memory platform mapping changes of gentrified districts of Prague; episode Žižkov; avialable on pametmesta.cz/zizkov; translated by the author (Turner, n.d.)

[1] The used title translates the title of the quoted podcast (Turner, n.d.)

(author's drawing)

Fig.5 ŽIŽKOV TERRITORY

salary is lower than a normal rent for an apartment, it is not even enough to rent a single room, so she lives in a double room. Gentrification pressure is experienced by all the interviewees, and all share negative connotations to the word developer. The question is, weather Žižkov resists the push or whether it only lives on its own legend.

LOWER ŽIŽKOV

Žižkov is a district located in the immediate vicinity of the center (historic Old Town and New Town) and directly adjacent to the main railway station. The cadastral territory of Žižkov is informally divided into a lower and upper Žižkov. The Metropolitan Plan considers Žižkov to be a much smaller area, resembling the lower Žižkov. This territory of 73 hectares defines a continuous urban structure and at the same time allows to recognize certain social bonds to the place. Žižkov is part of the Prague Monument Zone with a number of protected buildings. (IPR Prague, n.d.) The Metropolitan Plan defines the target character of Žižkov as:

To complete and strengthen the target character of the buildable, stabilized, residential locality of Žižkov with a block structure. The Žižkov locality is defined as a locality with a block structure. The aim of the proposed regulations is to preserve the spatial arrangement, to develop characteristic elements, such as, in particular, the compositional axis of Seifert's with a view of Prague Castle. In the locality, it is proposed to supplement pedestrian and bicycle traffic, increase the permeability at the interface with the locality of Nové Město and Hlavní nádraží, and supplement the technical infrastructure. (IPR Prague, p. 1 of cover sheet n. 021 of the Metropolitan Plan, n.d., translated by the author)

(author's drawing)

Fig.6 LOWER ŽIŽKOV

Parks Public Squares Main Traffic Lines Tram Stop Future Metro Station

TOWN HALL BLOCK

Municipal Property Vacant Buildings

(author's drawing) + (Google Maps, n.d.)

Fig.7 TOWN HALL BLOCK

TOWNHALL BLOCK

At the main square of Žižkov we find the Town Hall. The long-term plan of Prague 3 is to concentrate local authorities around this square. For this reason, the primary school building was vacated in 2014, but the reconstruction never took place and the building remained empty. Half of the town hall block buildings are owned by the city. The entire eastern part is dedicated to local government offices. In the northern part there is another empty building adjacent to the school, for which Prague 3 is actively trying to find a public program. On the west side we find a small building guarding the land for the future archive, which was never built. This plot in the courtyard is directly adjacent to the school grounds. The town hall block, with its municipal and half-empty buildings and land, is thus a significant potential for the local Žižkov micro center, connecting the lower and upper Žižkov. (Prague 3, 2015)

TOWN HOUSE

The town house in Štítného Street is one of the oldest in the area. It was built in 1881 as a family house of a sopranist of the National Theater. After the singer's death in 1907, a well-known music theorist also lived in the house, or one of the owners ran a stationery store here. In 2014, Prague 3 bought a house for 10.5 million Czech crowns (400,000 euros) with a plan to expand its housing stock. A project is proposed for reconstruction and extension, including seven studios, repair of a small yard and one commercial space on the ground floor. The reconstruction never took place and the house remained empty. (Prázdné domy, n.d.) In 2019, a tender was announced for the lease of a building for a maximum of 20 years. The main criterion will be the benefit of the project for the inhabitants of the Prague 3 district. The tenant will be obliged to reconstruct the building at their own expense. The static condition of the building is good, the condition of the interior is very poor (all wiring, electricity, water, gas are missing). (Prague 3, 2019) At present, even this tender does not look promising, and its results have been delayed for several months, even in connection with the current situation of COVID-19. (personal communication, Matěj Žaloudek, Chairman of the Committee on Territorial Development of Prague 3, 25.9.2020)

In contrast to the previously mentioned model of land lease for Baugruppe projects, the tender is set very to the detriment of the landlord. None of the invested money are subject to compensation after the end of the lease period, which puts pressure on the rapid profitability of the proposal in the case of larger investments, or, conversely, the minimization of investments. (Prague 3, 2019) The question therefore remains what, if any, will emerge from the tender under these conditions. The reformed

Fig.8 VACANT BUILDINGS (Google Maps, n.d.)

Klinika collective, previously mentioned in connection with the autonomous social center only nine blocks away, also applied for this tender (personal communication, Arnošt Novák, 26.8.2020). Their interest shows that this building has the potential to be another community space for the people of Žižkov.

PRIMARY SCHOOL

The elementary school was the first dominant building in the square. From its opening in 1885, it served until 2014 with gradual modifications. First a floor was added in 1895, at one stage the west wing even had a gym. A complete modernization and landscaping took place in 1966 and the courtyard facade was insulated in 2013. Then the school moved to a nearby building in Cimburkova Street and the original building was meant to become offices of the local government. There was no money for this reconstruction yet, so the building remained empty so far. (Prázdné domy, n.d.) Currently Prague 3 considers the building to become a school again, because already in 2021 there will be a shortage of primary schools inthe area. Demographic studies show the need for three new schools over the next two decades. The first in the lower Žižkov and the other two in the area of the upper Žižkov. (personal communication, Matěj Žaloudek, 25.9.2020)

The building of the former school has a fundamental influence on the character of Havlíčkovo náměstí. The operation of a typical Czech school is not fundamentally different from the current state from the public space point of view - during and after classes the ground floor remains lifeless, at the same time the building does not contain rooms for extracurricular or public activities that would give the square life even in the afternoon. In case of returning the school to the building, it is at least appropriate to consider the involvement of additional public programs.

WAREHOUSE AND COURTYARD

The school building includes a large part of the courtyard. Due to the slope in which the town hall block lies, the courtyard is cascading and in three levels with an approximate difference of one floor it rises from the school building (also from the House of a Sopranist) to the west side of the block with a small warehouse. This plot has long been a reserve for the archive, for which Prague 3 also has no money. Currently, the Department of Local Development plans to use the building as a reuse

Fig.9 MAIN SQUARE EARLY STATE (Historické Fotografie - Žižkov - Havlíčkovo, n.d.)

Fig.10 MAIN SQUARE NOW (Revitalizace Havlíčkova náměstí, n.d.)

center, which does not require any major building modifications, and is considering the temporary use of the courtyard in connection with the town hall and surrounding offices. If the concept of a reuse center proves to be viable, it could gradually grow in height. (personal communication, Matěj Žaloudek, 9/25/2020

HAVLÍČKOVO SQUARE

Havlíčkovo, originally Basel Square, has been the central square of Žižkov since its foundation in 1875. This 70 x 70 meter sloping space faces the central statue of the poet and journalist Karel Havlíček Borovský, after whom it is named. The upper side is formed by the mentioned town hall block (town hall and school), the lower side is dominated by the Merkur's building with a tower, and the other sides are closed by ordinary town houses. In 2015, the square was transformed into a more park form and the position of the central statue was further underlined. (Prague 3, 2015)

Compared to the historical state, the revitalized square seems to be a crime against public space. The whole area is separated from the building's ground floors by layers of fences, vague green strips and bushes of roses. The entrances to this overly formalized space are illogically situated in the middles, where they do not correspond to the natural diagonal movement, and the formality further underlines the orthogonality of the paths. The already inactive surroundings are thus even more numb. Lower Žižkov has two significantly smaller squares that activate their surroundings, whether they are renovated or not. If Havlíčkovo square is to be a truly main square in the future, bringing together the people of the lower and upper Žižkov, it must learn from to set aside formality and prioritize usability for public life.