masarykovo railway station

The area along the Masarykovo Railway Station in Prague going below the highway to the Florenc bus terminal is a unique locality. It is very unlikely that we could, in fact, find a larger area in the central part of Prague requiring restructuring and defining of an urbanistic concept. The area, functioning mostly as a traffic junction in the past, is currently determined by several concepts of traffic structures. The primary motive of our design in the field of traffic connections is the establishment of seriously missing links. The developed area has the potential to connect the currently very attractive locations and profit from such new routes. There is the rapidly developing Karlín district on the one hand. Intensely developing infrastructure, a radical upgrading of the municipal environment and logical increasing attractiveness of local housing follows the construction of new office buildings. On the other hand, there is the pedestrian zone with landmarks challenging to extend the locality from the place in front of the U Hybernů palace via V Celnici through the planned development area. The flow would split into the one heading to Na Florenc to Sokolovská and Křižíkova (commercial axes of the Karlín district) and the second one leading up to a more intimate park of Karlín, into Pernerova. This connection is possible via the Metro in the first place. This approach, however, principally contradicts the modern understanding of the city environment that could be characterised by the motto ´to live the city´. A newly defined pedestrian boulevard with attractive multi-function areas on the streetscape (shops, services, cultural institutions) would perfectly match this idea of a city environment. The traffic must be made a lot quieter in Na Florenci (this is an important shortcut from the highway to the area in front of the City of Prague Museum during peak traffic hours) to bring this concept into life. It can be achieved by arranging it as a no-through street in the area by the Masarykovo Railway station, or substantially limiting the traffic by for instance suitable traffic measures. Although the project physically allows building the road connecting Na Florenci and Pernerova recommended in the development plan, we believe, after thorough studies of the location in question, that such a connection will not benefit it. We propose to build this connection for only pedestrians and bicyclists and block it for cars in the viaduct area. That means if fact the Na Florenci and Pernerova will ´only´ be extended towards each other yet not physically connected. We propose that, along with the reclamation of the area of the railway along its south border, the land will be upgraded in the area of the planned Railway Museum. It would not be difficult to connect the calmed area featuring listed buildings and attractive trails for walking to the Vítkov environment and then follow along a new footbridge to the planned area. We are convinced that the idea of upgrading the open spaces – parks in the area of the former Těšnov Railway Station and the City of Prague Museum and connecting them into a continuous green belt is correct. This way arranged, there would be no obstacle standing in the way of the connection between Vítkov and the popular cycling trail along the river. If a part of the Negrelli Viaduct would be altered, the Štvanice Island could be accessed without needing to build a new bridge over the Vltava river. The plans mentioned above and concepts are the principal pillars forming our design of the location in question. They are reflected not only in the positioning of the buildings and functions allocated to them, but they shape the space between the buildings, too. Last, but not least, they define shapes of the buildings when the buildings with their thoroughfares ´step back´ to make way for important municipal routes.