An independent research grant, investigating the intersections of regime change, infrastructural and architectural space, site reclamation and cultural narrative in the built environment of the Czech Republic. In a young country with an old design culture, existing in the context of a tumultuous recent history of occupation and sociopolitical change, what role is occupied by the physical places built or appropriated by outdated institutions, or their remnants? What is the potential for adaptation or creative reuse, and what lessons might be learned from transformations already under way?

The project began with a survey and study of built sites across the country, with an emphasis on those which were infrastructural in nature and were conscripted to different functions, or underwent periods of abandonment, throughout the major periods of recent Czech and Czechoslovak history. Discovery, access and documentation, mapping, contextual analysis and interviews with local stakeholders informed a research paper; in a second phase, one study site in particular was used for the basis of a theoretical adaptation project: a network of extensive Soviet-era underground chambers and passages, excavated below the the short-lived statue of Stalin built atop of one of Prague’s central hilltops, was chosen for a theoretical design project, in which elements of written narrative and installation design were combined in imagining a reactivation of a culturally fraught but fascinating, spatially dynamic place.