The Golden Tower.
This post, for me, straddles the line between politics and sports. It contains a slight appeal to a notorious pain that affects all of our lives, namely hypertrophied bureaucracy. But there is also a reference to a sport called curling. I've included the post in the politics section, hope you don't mind.
Zaha Hadid (one of the world's most important architects) managed, before her untimely death, to win an architectural competition to transform the surroundings of Masaryk Station and create an architecturally interesting complex of buildings in this central part of the city. Since the company behind the project is Penta, it was not far from a funny nickname for the project, namely "Dospivova ulice". However, this is not the only thing that links Zaha to the Czech Republic. Zaha Mohammad Hadid was also a member of the committee that in 2007 selected the winning project for the building of the National Library from among the projects submitted by the architect Kaplický. In 2005, the Iraqi architect received a prestigious award for her rendering of the ski jump in Innsbruck. It was at the nineteenth IAKS congress, which was held in Cologne and had a special significance for Czech curling. Here, the architect Ivana Kubešková received the award for the design of the curling hall Na Roztylech, especially for its barrier-free design. This momentarily linked the paths of Glenn Architects and Zaha Hadid Architects. It's actually exactly thirteen years ago, and while the curling hall is fulfilling its mission and working for athletes with and without disabilities, the project with the flashy name of Central Business District is gradually extending deadlines and increasing costs. From the original £6.5 billion to today's £10. The currently still open but unresolved issue of the length of the construction procedure and the trend of rising construction prices are certainly key elements for the viability of this project. Even the Kaplický Library would probably have risen from the estimated cost of CZK 2.3 billion to at least three times that today. So if the Octopus could not follow the curling hall of Roztyl, perhaps at least the Golden Tower will brighten up the centre of Prague.
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