https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3238-7700
![Sample our Environment & Sustainability journals, sign in here to start your access, latest two full volumes FREE to you for 14 days]({"type":"image" , "src" : "/sda/5935/TOC-Subject-Sample-2021-Environment-Sustainability.jpg"})
ABSTRACT
This article presents three case studies of projects to construct new urban areas situated around the capital city of Prague. These urban areas were among the largest Czechoslovak urban planning projects and were intended as comprehensive environmental planning. Indeed, all of these projects included a formal declaration of the importance of protecting the existing environment while also creating a new environment for socialist people. The first of these case studies is the unrealized project of the city of Etarea (1967) planned for 135.000 inhabitants and based on an eco-friendly systems approach. The two other case studies represent implemented projects: Jižní Město (South City) which was, in 1971 planned for 64.000 inhabitants (then in the 1980s for more than 100.000 inhabitants) and Jihozápadní Město (Southwest City) which was, in 1968 planned for 80.000 inhabitants (then in the 1980s for more than 147.000 inhabitants).
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Notes on contributor
Jan Dostalík is an assistant professor at the Department of Environmental Studies of Masaryk University in Brno, Czech Republic. He has received degrees in art history, environmental studies and economics and worked for three years as a planner for a private urban planning firm. He specializes in the history of architecture and urban and regional planning in the 20th century, including overlaps into the 19th and 21st centuries. He is particularly focused on the environmental and social aspects of urban and regional planning, as well as environmentally-friendly spatial theories and practice.
Notes
1 Rákosník, Spurný and Štaif, Milníky moderních českých dějin, 246.
2 ‘Technocratic socialism’ reigned supreme during this era of a centrally planned economy, government ownership of all land and industry, quantifiable output of all investments, bureaucracy, mass industrialization, standardization, and large-scale architectural and urban planning projects. Spurný et al., “Technokratischer Sozialismus.”
3 Rákosník, Spurný and Štaif, Milníky moderních českých dějin, 246–249.
4 In contemporary publications this term was also translated to English as ‘human environment’, ‘human milieu’, or ‘habitable environment’. The term ‘living environment’ was not a concept, a paradigm, or an approach as such. It was more of a very general and, for the socialist regime, acceptable proclamation of an interest in good-quality natural and built environment, similarly to the term ‘sustainable development’ later in the period of capitalism. For a short discussion of the history of terms such as ‘hygiene’, ‘livability’, or ‘sustainability’, see Schott, “Livability.”
5 This phrase emerged in the late 1950s and early 1960s; in the 1970s it was overused and practically became an empty buzzword. Nevertheless, its roots stretch back to the very beginning of Czech town and country planning. See Dostalík, “Organicists.”
6 See Skřivanová et al. The Paneláks.
7 Schubert, “Cities and plans,” 12.
8 The city of Etarea was the only Czechoslovak urban planning project presented in the Montreal ‘Expo 67’, the motto of which was ‘Man and his World’.
9 The other important members of the team included Jaroslav Stehlík, Vladimír Sýkora, Ludmila Englichová, Vladimír Šipler or Jiří Musil.
10 Čelechovský et al., Etarea, U – 1/8.
11 Ibid., U – 1/2–1/9.
12 Skřivánková et al., Paneláci 1, 327.
13 Ibid., 328.
14 Krásný, Lasovský and Řihošek, “Podrobný územní plán,” 444.
15 Other important team members were Milan Klíma, Václav Valtr, Ivo Loos, Jindřich Malátek or Jan Zaoral.
16 Oberstein, “Urbanistická kompozice,” 123–130.
17 Bočan et al., “Jihozápadní Město,” 243.
18 Ivo Oberstein changed jobs based on what institutes were dealing with some aspects of the planning and construction of the locality. Later, during 1989-1994, he was Chief Architect of the capital city of Prague and had a significant influence on construction at that time. His last urban design projects included Sluneční náměstí and the town hall for Jihozápadní Město (1997-2002).
19 Oberstein, Interview with Jan Dostalík 2018.
20 Ibid.
21 Oberstein, Interview with Jan Dostalík 2019.
22 Banham, Architecture, 12.
23 In general, architects and planners in Czechoslovakia did not have as high a position as their peers in the Soviet ‘West’. Metspalu and Hess, “Revisiting the role of architects.”