Section Archive Panorama
Young musicians light up Prague’s subway
It was another cold, grey morning for the thousands of commuters who passed
through the city’s crowded metro stations making their way to work on
Wednesday morning. But on this particular day the mood in Prague’s busy
subway was different. An all-day musical happening put a smile on
people’s faces and many stopped to listen, even if it meant missing their
regular train connection. More
Award-winning Czech typographer takes on Gujarati
Type design is an ancient art enjoying a renaissance in the computer age.
The specificities of writing systems that were once passed down from master
to apprentice can now be worked with by designers anywhere in the world who
have the patience and the talent to take on a foreign script. One such
designer is David Březina, one of the founders of the Brno type foundry
Rosetta. In 2008 his Skolar type family received international recognition
and he is now working on a font for the Gujarati writing system, used by
over 60 million people in the Indian subcontinent. When he came to our
studio recently I asked him how he became interested in type design in the
first place. More
The Blonde Bitch Strikes Again at a Prague theatre house
The increasingly absurd world of Czech politics is proving a huge success
at a small Prague theatre house which is drawing the crowds with a
political cabaret based on real life politics. Actors reciting verbatim
excerpts from wiretappings involving prominent politicians and statements
from the scandalous trial against the de-facto leader of one of the ruling
parties keep the audience in gales of laughter; a sad testimony of the
sorry state of Czech politics. More
UFOs over Czech skies do battle with sceptics
Last weekend there were reports from around the country of strange lights
in the sky, flying about, flaring up, flaring out, chasing each other.
It’s true, unidentified flying objects do not just swerve by the Czech
Republic on their way to the States, they are here too; and if you thought
the Czechs too sceptical to notice, you were as wrong as I was. And last
weekend wasn’t the first time. More
Czech charity helps save unwanted racing greyhounds from Ireland
A few hours of browsing the web changed Lucie Poučova’s life forever.
After accidentally coming upon a site reporting on the fate of unwanted
racing greyhounds in Ireland she decided to get involved and now runs an
animal welfare organization dedicated to re-homing unwanted greyhounds from
Ireland and Spain with families in the Czech Republic. More
Do you know who cleans your house?
A video spot made by the Association for Integration and Migration
highlights the problems of foreign nationals working as domestic service
providers – cleaners, maids and nannies. Approximately 27 thousand women
from former Soviet bloc countries and Asia are currently employed in menial
positions in Czech households. Their poor grasp of the language and scant
knowledge of their rights –as well as fear of deportation -make them easy
targets of exploitation and maltreatment. More
Exhibition at Vitkov Memorial highlights the Klement Gottwald personality cult
The National Museum has opened an exhibition highlighting the personality
cult of the first Czechoslovak communist president, Klement Gottwald. The
exhibition, named Laboratory of Power, is located in Prague´s Vítkov
Memorial which the communist regime turned into a mausoleum for Gottwald
after his death in 1953. One of the exhibition’s organizers Marek Junek
took me through the underground rooms built for the army of people who took
care of the embalmed body for nine long years. He started out by explaining
how the memorial underwent a significant transformation after the
communists took power: More
My house is my castle: the best and worst in village architecture
You may know the feeling – you return to your native village after a long
absence and come across an eyesore – a building that screams “money,
power and influence” and sticks out like a sore thumb from its
surroundings. That is the kind of building that architect and photographer
Jan Kruml likens to a flashing gold tooth. More
Czech team designs computerized playground
Getting youngsters to play outside on a sunny day is an increasingly
difficult task. Most parents now find it near impossible to pry their
children away from their computers and compared to the wonders of virtual
reality kids no longer find outdoor activities as attractive. Czech
designer Pavel Tuma and his team have now unveiled a revolutionary 5-D
playground that aims to change that. More
A long-forgotten story of survival from WWII comes to light
A black and white photograph of a smiling Jewish girl unearthed in a
photographer’s studio some years ago has led a young Czech journalist to
piece together the dramatic story of a large group of Jewish children who
were smuggled to Denmark to escape the Holocaust. While the story of the
Nicolas Winton children is well known, this one is only just coming to
light and will hopefully reunite long-lost friends scattered around the
globe. The freelance journalist who is singlehandedly tackling the task is
Judita Matyasova whom I invited to the studio. She began by telling me how
it all came about. More
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