Prague 7 Municipality to lend money to buy building with land on Ortenovo náměstí

The Prague City Council will provide a CZK 40 million loan to Prague 7 to purchase a building with land adjacent to the school on Ortenovo náměstí. This follows from a document approved by the town councillors yesterday. The town hall bought the property from a private owner last year for CZK 64 million and is now asking for part of the money from the city. The city councillors still have to approve the loan.

The land was used as a school playground in the first half of the 20th century and in the 1950s a so-called nursery school was built there. To this day, the property is still in the public amenity area in terms of the zoning plan. There are 17 municipal kindergartens and primary schools in Prague 7.

In the immediate vicinity of the property there is a primary school campus, a public playground or a kindergarten. According to the town hall, this offers the possibility to increase the capacity of some of the schools. There are several school buildings on the square. However, in the 1990s, one of the buildings, which was formerly a kindergarten, was privatised by a private owner who used it as offices and for other private purposes, including a playroom.

The project of the nursery was created on the basis of the post-war two-year economic plan from 1947 to 1948 in the Prague Study and Typization Institute under the guidance of architect Lubor Marek. Brick two-room schoolhouses were built all over Czechoslovakia at that time. They were usually designed as modules, sometimes also as double or triple solitary buildings. In Prague 7 there are other such buildings in the park in Tusarova Street or in Na Výšinách Street. Both buildings are kindergartens.