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Young Czech designer Jan Čtvrtník has worked for some of the best-known names in the industry, from domestic firm Moser to IKEA and Electrolux. He has just won an illustrious Droog award for a vase highlighting the issue of climate change, which also attracted the attention of British design guru Marcus Fairs. He has studied in Sweden and spent part of his schooling at NASA HQ in Houston, Texas. He now lives and works in Italy. During a brief trip back to the Czech Republic, I caught up with Jan Čtvrtník in a bustling Prague café. As someone who

It was almost two years ago that then-fresh graduate Nina Mainerová set out with a colleague to open a professional architectural studio. But soon after their launch, the bills piled up and they were forced to modify their plans. First, they began offering preparatory classes for students applying to university; then they extended their workshops to include drawing and painting.

This week the Museum of Decorative Arts in Prague launched a new exhibition highlighting the fascinating history of the Matchbox brand – the famous die-cast toy cars. Matchbox and similar toy cars, traditionally referred to in Czech as Angličáci, have long proven popular here and there is no question the show will be a hit with families as well as collectors.

The Prague Playhouse, a successful English-language theatre company based in the Czech capital since 2003, premieres its new production of Charles Dickens’ timeless tale A Christmas Carol on Friday at Divadlo Inspirace.

Just a few days ago a Czech/Slovak/German children’s film called Modrý tygr (The Blue Tiger, released earlier this year) won the award for Best Picture at the Kinodiseea international children’s film festival in Bucharest. The film, based on a book by Tereza Horváthová, is set in a magical part of the city, focussing on a little girl and boy whose botanical garden is in danger of being demolished and can only saved by a magical tiger that the children befriend.

The International Festival of Outdoor Films has been bringing quality documentary, travel and extreme sport films to the Czech Republic and Slovakia over the last decade. In its 10th year, this year’s inception, which kicked off in Ostrava in October before travelling from town to town and city and city, is more than halfway through. In early December it is will wrap up in Prague with the winning films announced.

Part of Prague’s City Gallery, one of the city’s best-known venues, has been turned inside out, recently launching an exhibition of work not usually restricted by gallery walls. Entitled Stuck on the City, the show brings together work of top international street art and graffiti artists, names like Swoon, Zedz, the Czech Republic’s Pasta Oner and others.

A film about the breakaway region of Transnistria won the best Czech documentary award at the Jihlava International Documentary Film Festival 2012. The movie Fortress, by Lukáš Kokeš and Klára Tasovská, follows last year’s presidential elections which ousted Transnistria’s leader of 20 years, Igor Smirnov. At the same time, it offers an insight into the lives of ordinary people in the internationally unrecognized country located on a strip of land east of the river Dniester between Moldova and Ukraine.

Vladimíra Krčková recently performed at Life Fashion Café in Prague. She sang songs like “Once I had a secret love”, originally written for Doris Day in the 1950s. Standards like this one form the core of Krčková’s repertoire. Most pieces she performs are English-language tunes, but the singer also throws in the occasional French chanson and Spanish classics.

A new exhibition at the Rudolfinum Gallery in Prague presents the work of 12 contemporary British artists. Entitled Beyond Reality: British Painting Today, the exhibit questions the ways of viewing reality in today’s art and reflects two particular trends: the influence of photorealism and references to 19th century academic painting. The exhibition features, among others, the authors Ben Johnson, Keith Tyson, Damien Hirst, the Chapman brothers as well as Czech-born, London-based artist Hynek Martinec.