A vivid memory of communism, the typical prefabricated apartment blocks, continue to be in vogue, but for many Czechs they represent a choice that is dictated by need
Accessible from an economic point of view and well-connected to the public transport system, the paneláky are still one of the most popular middle-class forms of housing
A symbol of the socialist era, the paneláky are the typical grey buildings constructed with precast concrete panels. Built mostly in the suburbs, they have never shaken off the image of an oppressive past that is reflected on the landscape. Something to get rid of? Quite the contrary. In recent years we are witnessing a rematch of the paneláky, buildings in which the Czechs, after all, seem quite happy to live in and whose demand has never waned. However, opinions remain rather divided: there are those who really appreciate them, but also those who make the best of a bad job and choose them because they are not able to afford more expensive housing. However, we cannot deny that over time and with various structural modifications, even these Soviet-style apartment buildings are now considered differently.
The first precast panels were used in the 1940s but it was mainly in the socialist Czechoslovakia of the following two decades, after the Soviet invasion of 1968, that these blocks sprang up like mushrooms within the campaign framework launched by the social housing system. At the time, they were the houses that people sought after, which had long waiting lists. Fast and economic solutions to the housing crisis of the post-war years, the huge standardized buildings with twelve or more floors made up entire neighbourhoods and changed dramatically the layout of the city. Their lack of individualism reflected the ideological background of the regime, planned as dwellings for a classless society and the emblem of a government that constantly intruded into the grey everyday life of individuals.
The first panelák appeared in Prague Ďáblice in 1955, while Jižní Město, in the south part of the capital, dates back to the seventies. It is the largest and most populated area and includes the neighbourhoods of Chodov and Háje and hosts the most conspicuous part of the almost 80,000 inhabitants of Prague 11. At the beginning, there were only heaps of mud and the use of rubber boots was mandatory, and it also lacked basic services and you had to face up to a long trip just to do a little bit of shopping. It was here, in fact, that director Věra Chytilová shot Panelstory, a film that reports on the real conditions of this suburb. A similar landscape is described in the verses of the singer Slávek Janoušek: “tin-shacks, mounds of clay, pipes, casks, burdocks and weeds, I see them without my glasses. A network of broken panels, barrels, metal sheets, wires beams cables”. The opening of schools and shops and the arrival of the C Metro in Háje in 1980 improved the lives of the tenants. “As soon as there is less need to travel for sports, shopping or culture, people perceive space differently”, says Jiří Bartoň, a reporter who has spent his entire life in Jižní Město.
After the fall of the regime they often thought of transforming these barracks. Designed to last for a period of about 40 years, knocking them down now to build more beautiful buildings is a sort of utopia, due to a lack of financial resources and because in the Czech Republic the prefabricated apartments are 1.2 million, with more than three million people living in them. Prague itself has 54 popular neighbourhoods and 200,000 apartments that occupy 6% of its surface and host half a million people. In 2011, one of them was demolished in Havlíčkův Brod, a unique fact not only for Vysočina but for the whole country. The building was torn down for aesthetic reasons and for thirty years it had obstructed the view of the city centre. If even the population proved to be favourable to the demolitions, the institutions might consider it necessary also to protect the paneláky – because just to save the buildings of the district of Lesná in Brno, they declared the area a cultural monument.
However, quite recently they have chosen to personalize the external part of the paneláky in order to modernize them. Brick took the place of formica, wooden windows were converted to plastic ones, the external parts insulated and painted with brighter colours. “If intact, the concrete will last at least for a dozen years”, said the president of the Centre for redevelopment of prefabricated houses Tomáš Fendrych, “but we need constant maintenance”. As well as the exterior, they also re-did the heating system, the lifts, the entrances and the single apartments. Fully restored and relieved from their historical weight, the conglomerates now create a completely different atmosphere.
A survey in 2013 to discover the opinions of Czechs towards housing shows that 53% are satisfied with their homes – a figure that in 2001 did not exceed 36% and 40% of them consider it excellent to be able to reside in a suburb, whilst in 2001 it was only 16%. The real estate agents confirm this remarkable recovery of the market, where the main request is for paneláky, and this is due to their attractive prices, that have gone down on average by 30% since 2008.
The crisis has certainly had its weight, but in reality, many Czechs have never stopped appreciating the positive aspects of these neighbourhoods and do not wish to abandon them, because they also offer many services: public parks, essential services such as schools, kindergartens, shops and health facilities, and a transport system that connects the periphery to the centre. For these reasons, the paneláky are normally inhabited by the middle classes: doctors, teachers, professionals, but also managers and entrepreneurs, who could easily afford to buy a house in the centre or a new one. They are thus far from being ghettos in which to marginalize the low social classes, but it also happens that this type of dwelling is chosen by important political figures. Former Prime Minister Jan Fischer refused to settle in the representative villa, which he defined as a “nice hotel” and stayed in his apartment in Barrandov. “I want to live in my house, in my neighbourhood, where I do not miss anything and I get along well with the people there. From my panelák at the top floor, I have a nice view of Prague. I would never change it”. The current president Miloš Zeman, before moving into the presidential premises, lived for some time with his family in a panelák at Stodůlky, the western outskirts of Prague. Even his predecessor Václav Klaus, although he moved to the castle of Lány, always praised his apartment in Prosek: “Our children were born there and they had a place where to play, unlike Tyl Square, where I lived”, he declared in 2003. “For this reason I do not demonize the popular districts. The fact that they were designed according to socialist principles and the apartments are rather small and unacceptable from an aesthetic point of view – is another issue”.
Decades have passed since former President Václav Havel, while visiting Jižní Město in 1989, defined the paneláky as rabbit hutches. Yet the general consensus remains critical and the comments we hear in Prague do not exactly speak of true love for these types of buildings. “The panelák is the cheapest solution, but a house is a house”, states Radim Sládek. This is echoed by Petr Urbánek: “I doubt whether people love the paneláky, perhaps the fact is that the average Czech has no money to buy a better house”. Milan Šimiak is of the same opinion: “It is not true that people like staying in a panelák, and if they do so, it is probably out of necessity. It is a cheap house and people do not have enough money to buy a house in the city, and a house in the country is out of the question if you have to go back and forth, because in some villages there isn’t even a supermarket or a doctor or a postal service”. It is a matter of convenience. There are those, however, who discover a few positive sides, such as Daniel Tomek: “A house never again: the inability to walk (and if it is the case, along the street), the trees just beyond the fence, the noise of saws, lawn mowers, quads and dogs barking all day, the woods much further away from the neighbourhood… the panelák is bad in terms of social position but is excellent if you want to spend time with the family, a different thing from the continuous shuffling at home or commuting”. Many complain of the noise. This is how the songwriter Janoušek described the panelák in 1988: “Our house is full of noises, from left right and centre, from above and below, surrounded by crackling and laughter, singing, shouting and swearing”. Within walking distance one from the other, the buildings certainly did not favour privacy. If the gossip of neighbours is the daily bread and the walls have paper ears also emerges from the Slovak TV series Panelák, set in a three-storey building where everyone knows each other and what is going on “because you are standing there staring most of the day and all year at the building opposite, like a fool”.
by Sabrina Salomoni