Study of Karel Čapek’s garden renovation

At the end of June, we turned in a study of renovation of Karel Čapek’s garden, which is situated by his half of semi-detached villa he shared with his brother in Královské Vinohrady (Prague 10).

Karel Čapek is – with no doubt – one of the most influential figures of Czech cultural heritage, who’s work is famous even abroad. His former part of the house is going to be transformed into a museum and the garden will be presented to public as well. The garden was very important part of Čapek’s life. He built it on his own, he was spending a considerable part of his free time here and also mentioned it in his literary works.

The garden is a bit dilapidated nowadays. Ten years ago there was a renovation that was mainly focused on biotech measures. Nevertheless, main composition with all the original elements (such as alpinum, pool and grove) is well-preserved. The advantage of having preserved also many items of Čapek’s correspondence, bills from gardeners and photographs facilitates our study of renovation.

In the study we tend to respect spatial authenticity of the place, therefore we propose to make essential biotech measures on trees and plants and reduce overgrown bushes to retrieve the lightness of composition. Hereafter, old architectural and artistic elements will be reconstructed and restored. We propose to add new lighting, irrigation and functional and modern-looking information system.

On the pictures you can see photographs of nowadays garden and visualizations of proposed renovation.