A riverbank without water

Today, the name Pobřežní (Riverside) Street is somewhat misleading. It runs between the former industrial area of Karlín and modern office complexes. A century ago, however, its northern side was actually the bank of one of the Vltava’s branches. Several mills utilized the water, and the bustling Karlín Port operated here, from which ships sailed as far as Hamburg. The river, winding its way between several islands, also caused regular flooding. Consequently, in 1924, a large-scale project to regulate its course began. The Vltava was shifted several hundred meters closer to Holešovice, shortening its path through the city by more than a kilometer.

The soil from the excavations was deposited in the original riverbed, followed by further fill, and by the 1950s, the water from Pobřežní had disappeared for good. Prague thus lost Rohan Island, Crown Island, Mayor’s Island, and Jerusalem Island, whose land was incorporated into Karlín. Of the original cluster, only Štvanice remains today.

Where washing machines were made

From the mid-19th century onward, Karlín was filled with a mix of residential buildings and various factory complexes. Industrial development just a short distance from Prague’s city walls was supported not only by water but also by the presence of the railroad. The final section of the northwest railway line ran across Rohan Island toward Těšnov, featuring a separate freight station, and the Negrelli Viaduct defined the atmosphere of the entire neighborhood.

According to the cadastral map, the site where you will be able to visit CAMP during the reconstruction of Prager’s Cubes was already occupied by a long, wooden structure as early as the 1840s, when a dye works likely operated there. In 1861, the first engineering plant was established on the site. It was acquired by the firm Havelka & Mész, which specialized in sugar refinery machinery and also supplied equipment to laundries and ironing shops. Their washing machines, sold under the Perun brand, were particularly well-known. However, the product range was more diverse; period catalogs also list fire engines. The company expanded and renovated the complex; in 1915 (according to available plans), a hall was built that CAMP would occupy more than a century later. The redesign of the complex was proposed by Oldřich Brabec.

Boilers, parcels and galleries

During World War II, production was partially adapted to meet wartime orders; according to eyewitnesses, shipments of protective equipment for German submarines were also sent from the premises. The company was nationalized as early as 1946; the owners’ names were removed from the company name, and the enterprise began operating solely under the name of its products as Perun, National Corporation. However, as early as 1953, the complex became part of the ČKD conglomerate, and washing machine production was moved to Trnava as part of the planned socialist economy. ČKD Dukla then focused heavily on heavy engineering, producing boilers for power plants. The area surrounding the complex was significantly affected by the demolition of the Těšnov train station and the construction of the north-south highway. Even during the socialist era, a massive hotel—the Atrium, now the Hilton—was built here on the site of the former railroad tracks.

In the second half of the 1990s, plans were drawn up to transform the former ČKD complex into the Negrelli Center, an office and retail complex, under the direction of architect Jiří Kripner (Atelier A.I.T). The demolition of the transformer station and the adjacent single-story building with a gabled roof cleared space for today’s parking lot, which divided the complex into two parts. The eastern section, with its original hall, was briefly used by the shipping company DHL, which, in addition to the space for storing shipments, also added a single-story building for office use. In later years, the building began to open to the public as a gallery space: you may have visited an exhibition at Hauch or LL Gallery. However, the spaces need to be adapted for CAMP. Nevertheless, the center is being integrated into the existing gallery space as another, temporary layer, and the interventions are primarily localized and reversible.

Books will open up the new space

The first exhibition, titled “All You Can Read” in Karlín, will explore how ideas from books on architecture, urban planning, and urban development are translated into real-world practice. The exhibition hall will function as a playful reading room, giving visitors access to a collection of specialized literature that CAMP has been systematically building since its inception nine years ago. In addition to the opportunity to comfortably browse and read several hundred Czech and foreign titles, the exhibition will also offer a curated selection of books and ideas that may inspire the future development of Prague.