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I have a strong passion to modernist architecture. I adore brutalist buildings around Prague, they remind me of home. I grew up in a post-soviet country and I saw similar approach everywhere. After the socialist regime has fallen in CR several buildings were demolished. Chemapol is yet another one which is most likely going to disappear. There is a huge demand of flats in Prague, and after covid restrictions it is more clear that the era of such massive office buildings is going to end soon.
Chemapol was made by a two female architects Zdenka Marie Novakova and Dagmar Setstakova, inspired by post-war buildings of Ludvig Mies van der Rohe. At the period of construction (1967-1970) architects collaborated with Italian company FEAL, that provided so-called “glass walls” technology innovative to the time . After decades it was built it got repainted by a french-jewish artist Yaakov Agamov. During period between 1968 and 1969 it accommodated several works of painters and sculptors. Though after soviet regime fallen Chemapol couldn’t handle the turn to capitalism and got sold part by part. There are several examples of construction sites sharing same destiny: Transgas, CETIN.
I decided to degrade, demolish the building, stretch it till it collapse. The first idea was to put a crawling structure on top o the building. A structure similar to mould, that you might not notice from the first site.