EMIL KOLBEN`S DISTRICT 1

Prague 9  - Vysočany

Emil Kolben's district 1 is located between the Rokytka creek, the Zahradky pond and Kolbenova Street in Prague's Vysocany and is built on the site of a brownfield. The district is named after Emil Kolben (1862-1943), a Czech electrical engineer, entrepreneur and businessman. He founded the engineering factory ‘Kolben a spol.’ in 1896 and became CEO of ‘Ceskomoravska-Kolben-Danek’ (CKD) and had production facilities on today’s Kolbenova Street in Vysocany. Sadly, Kolben and 26 of his family members were imprisoned at the Terezin concentration camp after Nazi Germany’s occupation of Czechoslovakia, where they were eventually killed. Only Kolben’s grandson, Jindrich, survived. The boiler room and its chimney have been preserved from the original factory buildings to remind us of this once-industrial district. The district will include an educational route about Emil Kolben, highlighting his contributions to engineering and industrialization. Emil Kolben columns will be placed in the public spaces during each development stage, which is inspired by the production of electrical components and technologies. The first stage of the project is located next to the Zatisi nad Rokytkou buildings on Svatosovych Street and is practically a follow-up to this project. Emil Kolben's district 1 consists of three seven-storey low-energy buildings with a certificate of energy performance rating of B. The individual houses are named after members of the Kolben family. The Malvin building is named after his wife, while the Greta and Lilly buildings are named after their two daughters. A total of 133 flats were built, available from 1+kk to 4+kk. As with similar projects, ground-floor flats have front gardens, flats on the upper floors have a balcony or terrace and there are large terraces on the sixth and seventh floors, which are recessed. In the common areas of the buildings there are bike rooms and a room with a shower for washing bicycles and strollers. LOXIA provided the architectural study, planning and building permits and the architect’s supervision.