What's in a Prague street name

Originally posted on Twitter on 2 January 2023.

Bruselská was built in 1884.

Until 1926, this was Erbenova, after Karel Jaromír Erben (1811-1870), a poet whose best-known work is Kytice (if you haven’t read it, you may well have seen the early-2000s film adaptation).

Given it’s only been a week since Belgická (https://whatsinapraguestreetname.com/2024/06/30/prague-2-day-51-belgicka/), I really thought I was going to have to write about Čapí hnízdo and that man who’s going to have so, so, so much more written about him that he deserves this month.

But luckily, something awesome came up – and it’s about Expo 58, AKA the 1958 Brussels World’s Fair. Because the award for ‘best pavilion’ actually went to the Czechoslovakian one.

Pics in this thread are screenshots from this incredibly high-quality colour documentary from the time. The Czechoslovakian section starts around the 22:20 mark, but really the whole thing is so watchable.

In the late 1950s, the Communist government had a relatively relaxed attitude to culture. So the architects who designed the pavilion – František Cubr, Josef Hrubý and Zdeněk Pokorný – had a good amount of free rein on their project.

The motto of Expo 58 was Bilan du monde, pour un monde plus humain (Evaluation of the world for a more humane world), and the Czechoslovak pavilion, in line with this, aimed to show the productiveness of the state.

It housed an exhibition called Jeden den v Československu (One day in Czechoslovakia), designed by Jindřich Santar, and consisting of twelve smaller exhibitions covering work, culture and leisure.

Between April and October 1958, the Czechoslovak exhibition got 6 million visitors. The pavilion and its restaurant building were transferred to Prague once Expo was over.

The pavilion was placed at Výstaviště, but was destroyed in a fire in October 1991: https://cnn.iprima.cz/chloubu-expa-58-znicil-slendrian-bruselsky-pavilon-lehl-popelem-pred-30-lety-36494

More positively, the pavilion’s restaurant building still exists on Letná. Since 2021, it’s been an exhibition hall, Expo 58 Art: https://aloos.cz/en/expo-58-gallery

The most famous product of Expo 58 is something that you will probably recognise.

Although the legacy of Expo 58 is not universally positive: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/apr/16/belgium-comes-to-terms-with-human-zoos-of-its-colonial-past

Finally, the sculpture Nový věk (New Age), made by Vincenc Makovský, now lives on Veletržní in Brno (https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Nov%C3%BD_v%C4%9Bk#/media/File:Brno,_BVV,_Nov%C3%BD_v%C4%9Bk_(6304).jpg), whereas, in Vinohrady, you’ll probably recognise the replica in front of the New National Museum building.