2017 — Our Begin­nings and Site Restoration

Pražské cen­trum asso­ci­a­tion, pre­vi­ous­ly behind Nák­ladové nádraží Žižkov, takes over Kasár­na Kar­lín, starts clear­ing and restor­ing the site, and grad­u­al­ly trans­forms for­mer mil­i­tary bar­racks into a vibrant pub­lic space.

2017 – 2023 – Devel­op­ment and Cul­tur­al Life

Days are fill­ing up with events, drinks are being served and the court­yard is slow­ly com­ing back to life.

New green­ery is being plant­ed and inter­ac­tive fea­tures for kids, like sand­pit and a ded­i­cat­ed space for out­door activ­i­ties, are appearing.

At the same time, the Pražské cen­trum asso­ci­a­tion is car­ry­ing out repairs and con­ser­va­tion work on the New Build­ing, grad­u­al­ly turn­ing it into a café, cin­e­ma, con­cert hall, and dance studio.

Dur­ing this peri­od, the site is owned by the state — first by the Min­istry of Jus­tice, lat­er by the ÚZSVM — which treats the asso­ci­a­tion’s activ­i­ties as tem­po­rary and there­fore offers no coop­er­a­tion either in its efforts to change the offi­cial use of the spaces or to reclas­si­fy the build­ing from a mil­i­tary facil­i­ty to a civil­ian one.

2024 – 2025 — Clo­sure of the premises

Kasár­na Kar­lín becomes city prop­er­ty. The Prague 8 Build­ing Author­i­ty bans the use of the build­ing, cit­ing a mis­match between its approved and actu­al use. At the end of May 2024, the gates of the site are sud­den­ly closed to the public.

In the mean­time, the zon­ing plan is changed, and Kasár­na Kar­lín is reclas­si­fied as a mixed-use urban core. This allows the Pražské cen­trum asso­ci­a­tion to relaunch some of its activ­i­ties on a pro­vi­sion­al basis in the court­yard, bring­ing back sum­mer the out­door cin­e­ma, sand­pit with play­ground, vol­ley­ball, and tem­po­rary out­door bars. 

All of this is made pos­si­ble thanks to the fundrais­ing efforts of the neigh­bors, because even a closed site still costs a lot to keep secure, pow­ered, and maintained.

Pražské cen­trum asso­ci­a­tion – which was in the past always rein­vest­ing all of its earn­ings into improv­ing the site – would have nev­er been able to reopen with­out the sup­port of the local community.

May 2025 — Return to the courtyard

Novem­ber 2025 — The cur­rent sit­u­a­tion: wait­ing and hoping 

Prague 8 Build­ing Author­i­ty has now issued an addi­tion­al build­ing per­mit for Kasár­na Kar­lín, against which an appeal has unfor­tu­nate­ly been filed. As a result, the asso­ci­a­tion is still unable to reopen the indoor spaces and must con­tin­ue oper­at­ing under pro­vi­sion­al con­di­tions until the appeal is resolved. 

The appeal is more dis­ap­point­ing, as in recent months the asso­ci­a­tion has been in close dia­logue with neigh­bours, addressed a num­ber of their com­ments, and imple­ment­ed many mea­sures aimed at min­i­miz­ing the impact of our oper­a­tions on the peace­ful life of the sur­round­ing community.

Noise mit­i­ga­tion measures

Based on dis­cus­sions with our neigh­bours and the site oper­a­tor — TCP — we have adopt­ed the fol­low­ing mea­sures in order to min­i­mize the impact of our activ­i­ties on the peace­ful life around Kasár­na Karlín. 

The num­ber of large out­door con­certs has been reduced to a max­i­mum of two per year, and each event is sub­ject to pri­or approval by TCP.

The num­ber of small out­door con­certs has been reduced to a max­i­mum of four per year.

Events with back­ground music are lim­it­ed to a max­i­mum of eleven per year.

Out­door cin­e­ma screen­ings are held only with head­phones and with reduced audi­ence capacity.

Out­door bars and food stands close no lat­er than 11:00 PM.

Out­door activ­i­ty after 9:00 PM is sig­nif­i­cant­ly restrict­ed — the part of the court­yard which is clos­er to the near­est apart­ment com­plex gets closed off.

We have increased on-site secu­ri­ty dur­ing evening hours.

The use of the new cin­e­ma hall is restrict­ed to screen­ings and dis­cus­sions only.

Site-spe­cif­ic events are lim­it­ed or have been dis­con­tin­ued alto­geth­er (e.g. Sig­nal Fes­ti­val — light pro­jec­tions on out­door build­ing facades accom­pa­nied by music, or larg­er the­atre pro­duc­tions with musi­cal accompaniment).

These mea­sures require nec­es­sary invest­ments, includ­ing the pur­chase of a deci­bel meter with a record­ing capa­bil­i­ty (for indoor con­certs) and a sound lim­iter (for back­ground music), as well as the imple­men­ta­tion of ​“Silent Dis­co” tech­nol­o­gy for the out­door cinema.