At this moment (from around 16 o’clock, 12th September 2009), a house on the corner of Apolinarska and Na Slupi Streets is being occupied. This house has been chosen for several reasons: it’s empty since many years, neglected and left to disrepair. Even the smallest reparation works has not been done and the roof is then broken with water coming in. On the other hand, door and windows are very well walled up, so that nobody can live in here.
According to an auction report, this house would be “an ideal place to build luxury appartments and commercial spaces”, that means another victory of profit and not the one of real needs of inhabitants of the city, who can see emerging luxury houses, but no affordable housing, like if the need for it would not even exist. This particular house is constantly secured against all those, who don’t have a place to stay, because it’s there to serve to the rich and for the commercial purpose, which is a process happening in the whole center of Prague. And it is becoming a display window, deprived of any sign of everyday life of those, who can’t afford the expensive housing and who don’t go shopping in posh stores.
The building of the former bathhouse dating back to 1932 is in a complicated situation: the estate agents, who own the house, cannot dispose of it, because it’s probably in a bad financial situation and the house is now used as a guarantee. The house went in auction in 2002, but unsuccessfully. It could then fall into much of a worse state in the next few years or it can become a cultural and social space, different from the uniform Prague centre. A place that wouldn’t serve only to those, who would live in there, but to a wide public, who miss something specific in the town centre…
Source in Czech: http://teta.milada.org
