Architects to unveil plan for reconstruction of the old Prague-Bubny railway station as a Holocaust remembrance site on 12 May

From 1941-1945, as many as 50,000 people passed through the old station, most of them Jews forcibly transported to Theresienstadt and other Nazi concentration and extermination camps. The CPDB also wants to familiarize the public with the concept for its programming and its new visual style, director Pavlína Šulcová told the Czech News Agency (ČTK).

In September 2024, the Czech Culture Ministry selected Šulcová to replace Pavel Štingl, the civil society founder of the Památník ticha (Monument to Silence) in Bubny, to be the director of the state-sponsored organization responsible for transforming the railway station. That institution has since been named the Bubny Center for Memory and Dialogue.

According to the Railway Administration, the reconstruction of the Bubny railway station as per the design by ARN Studio, based in Hradec Králové, will create modern spaces suitable for organizing exhibitions and other events. The building is expected to include a café and the revitalization of the adjacent, publicly-accessible area near the Holešovice and Malý Berlín residential neighborhoods.

The new space is intended to link the past with the present. The memorial, created by renovating the authentic building of the old railway station, is intended to highlight the silence that remains after the Holocaust victims passed through it.

According to the architects, the building is intended to symbolize silence, which will be enhanced by blanking out the existing windows of the station so they cannot be seen through. The site will still be dominated by Aleš Veselý’s sculpture “The Gate of No Return”, which represents a railway track heading into the sky.

“In front of the door of the main entrance, which can be symbolically perceived as the ‘mouth’ of the building, a stele will be erected that covers it, like a hand placed in front of that mouth so it cannot speak. The mass of the building breaks through above it, like hope. The addition of a new story on top of the original station walls breaks the silence. It opens upward. Light comes in from above,” the architects described their intention on the studio’s website.

The architects will present their design on 12 May at the Mama Shelter Hotel in Holešovice, the former Parkhotel, as part of the Open House Prague festival. Registration is required.

During the festival weekend of 17-18 May, guided tours of the old Bubny railway station will be offered, Šulcová said. In March, the Railway Administration began looking for a contractor to undertake the new installations and the reconstruction for CZK 215 million [EUR 8.6 million] before VAT.

The Railway Administration wants to launch the reconstruction of the building of the old station this summer and complete it within two years. The Government released the funds for the project in February.

Trains stopped using the station at the start of 2023, when modernization of the line to Kladno started with demolition work there. It had been in use non-stop since 1868; the station house was built in 1923.

This summer, the Railway Administration intends to open an absolutely new, larger Prague-Bubny station near the Negrelli viaduct.