Do we take note of the art around us?
What?
Do you know that for many years, the Náměstí Míru station could boast an absolutely unique light installation, which changed its light intensity with the number of people in the vestibule? And do you know that the installation described was removed in the 1990s owing to the placement of a newsstand and a betting shop? In addition to that, the same fate befell dozens of other art pieces, which have been covered by the premises of stores, or even completely destroyed. And has it ever crossed your mind why the Anděl station used to be called Moskevská (Moscow Station)? Or would you like to know why the A line stations are decorated with bright colors and where the mysterious stain on the wall at the Smíchovské nádraží station came from? Metroart.cz is here to fill your desirous minds with interesting facts about the Prague Metro art and its development in time.
Why?
The intention behind creating this website is to highlight the architectural, artistic and design qualities of the Prague Metro, which undoubtedly belongs to the most extraordinary, yet the most ignored architectural gems of the former Czechoslovakia. From the very beginnings in the 1970s until the watershed year of 1990, dozens of art pieces and unique design elements were placed in the Prague Metro. These, however, look utterly negligible in the context of the contemporary time. Several artworks were destroyed after the Velvet Revolution, new art pieces, nonetheless, did not emerge. This tendency of the early 1990s continued in the following time, which resulted in a few surviving artworks hiding in the shadows of garish advertisements. The original qualities of the Prague Metro are hereby denied and the newly opened extensions do not show significant emphasis on art.
Who?
The author of this server is Štěpán Charvát, a twenty-two-year-old student of Social Sciences and English Language at the Faculty of Education, Charles University. This purely amateur website was created as a seminar paper in the Web Sites Development elective course at the Department of Information Technology and Technical Education of the above-mentioned faculty. If you have any questions or comments concerning this website, I will be happy to receive your e-mail or Facebook message. My contact information can be found at the bottom of this page.
How?
In the spring of 2017, I started taking photographs of art pieces located in the Prague Metro system, which I eventually uploaded on this website. Apart from art installations, I also dealt with the architecture of the stations, the choice of material, and interesting design elements. I particularly focused on the stations built in the era of communism, i.e. before 1990. Besides recording the art that has remained, my secondary aim was to trace back the art pieces that were removed or made inaccessible after the Velvet Revolution, so that the reader could have a rough idea of how much art there is on the Prague Metro, and how many gems beautifying the stations were lost forever(?). Every individual webpage on this site includes a list of information sources, the most interesting of which can be found in the Links section.
