The invisible power of the wall

During the revitalization of the Husův Park in Prague, a sculptural-architectural monument called SUPERPOWER WALL was created, exploring the theme of transformation.

Now home to the Hussite Revolution Park in Čakovice, the site was historically a village green space surrounded by a lake. During the First Czechoslovak Republic, the pond was drained, the neighboring houses were demolished and the area was turned into a park. The Land05 landscape architecture studio led the current reconstruction of the park, and the S K U L L studio was commissioned to design the memorial wall.

“The wall is a memento of what is no longer here, which nevertheless leaves its imprint on the place and time,” said sculptor Matěj Hájek from the S K U L L studio. The contours of the gable roofs of the demolished houses have been transcribed into the structure of the wall: these diagonal lines give the wall its characteristic angles. Unlike traditional building materials, the wall is coated with a nanotechnological transparent coating that cleans the surrounding air thanks to its photocatalytic properties (without chemicals or waste materials). The surface of the wall is also impregnated with titanium dioxide, which can eliminate up to several kilograms of harmful substances per square meter per year. This unique technology was developed by Czech scientists at the J. Heyrovský Institute of Physical Chemistry.

“The invisible plays a dual role here. On the one hand, there’s the nanotechnological coating that depends on sunlight in order to function, and on the other is memory, fragments of recollections that exist only in our imagination. What is essential is not what we see, but precisely that which escapes our vision,” adds Hájek.

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Photos: Bet Orten

Source: Linka

• architecture
• czech republic
• east
• czech architecture
• monument