A Symbolic Key for Invalidovna: CZK 2.15bn and Four Years to 2030

The reconstruction of Invalidovna in Karlín has formally begun. Builders took a symbolic key at a ceremony reported on 26 August, the National Heritage Institute (NPÚ) put the cost at CZK 2.15 billion, and the public is to see the restored complex for the first time in 2030. It is the largest investment NPÚ has ever made.

The site itself changes hands on 31 August, when NPÚ hands the works over to Sdružení Invalidovna, a consortium of Metrostav CZ, AVERS and Chládek & Tintěra. Four years of work follow.

What gets built

Two things are happening at once. The Baroque building is being restored, and on the free plot in the southern part of the site two modern extensions go up. NPÚ ran an architectural competition for the new part; the winning design is by Petr Hájek.

One extension takes the Prague Philharmonic Choir, together with a multipurpose hall for musical performances and conferences. The other takes the technical plant that cannot be put inside the protected historic fabric — the ordinary, unglamorous reason most heritage conversions of this scale end up building something new next door.

Inside the restored complex NPÚ will install two permanent exhibitions, one on the founding and running of Invalidovna itself, the other on the aristocratic seats in the institute's care. There will be exhibition space, a visitor centre and a café, and the courtyard and gardens will be opened through the original entrances. NPÚ is also moving working functions in: restoration workshops, laboratories, documentation collections and study rooms.

Prague Morning, which carried its own account of the launch the same day, adds an underground garage for 50 vehicles, facilities for children's groups run by Prague 8, and an expectation that around 80 percent of the complex stays accessible to the public. Those figures appear in its report and not in the ČTK account.

The choir has been waiting

The Philharmonic Choir's presence is not decoration. Its director, David Mareček, was blunt about why the ensemble is moving in:

Sbor, který patří ke světové špičce, dosud nemá vlastní sídlo ani odpovídající podmínky pro svou každodenní práci.

— David Mareček, director of the Prague Philharmonic Choir

The choir, conducted by Lukáš Vasilek, sang at the ceremony.

NPÚ's director general Naděžda Goryczková, who has had the building on her books since 2018, said the wait had been long: "Na obnovu jsme čekali dlouho. S Invalidovnou žijeme osm let v NPÚ a takové synonymum pro Invalidovnu je jedinečnost."

The building the state nearly sold

Invalidovna has always been in state hands, but it was once being prepared for sale to a private owner. The planned auction was cancelled under Andrej Babiš's first government, and in 2018 the building passed free of charge to NPÚ from the state property office ÚZSVM. At the ceremony Goryczková reminded the prime minister of the argument: "Nevím, jak se to podařilo, ale nakonec jste podlehl tíze mých argumentů." Babiš, for his part, called the restoration one of the largest and most complicated heritage projects in Central Europe.

The building was put up in the 1730s on the Paris model, funded from the Petr Strozzi foundation. Only one ninth of Kilián Ignác Dientzenhofer's plan was ever realised — the reason Invalidovna reads as a fragment rather than a palace. It housed some four thousand disabled veterans until 1935, and Josef Sudek photographed life inside it. The Military Central Archive occupied it later; the 2002 floods damaged it badly. It has held the highest grade of heritage protection since 2017.

What the surveys turned up

Building-historical and archaeological work preceded the contract. Parts of the roof trusses turn out to date from Invalidovna's construction, and the building had a strikingly modern drainage system and ventilated latrines from the outset.

Archaeologists recorded roughly 3,400 finds: coins, stove tiles, folding knives, pipes, a toothbrush. Among the military material were buttons from Austro-Hungarian uniforms and from Czechoslovak gendarmerie uniforms, and decorations. Rescue archaeology will run alongside the construction.

Invalidovna is also the opening item on a longer list. Culture minister Oto Klempíř said he had received from the prime minister a roster of around fifteen state monuments to be restored during this electoral term, with more than a billion crowns promised for it by finance minister Alena Schillerová. Goryczková said the list was hers. Alongside the Plasy monastery it covers a further section of Karlštejn, the neglected state chateau at Horšovský Týn, and — in Goryczková's own listing — Janovice chateau, the Harrach property at the gateway to the Jeseníky, and the red chateau at Hradec nad Moravicí.