My Prague | All stories

Adam Štěch writes for the leading Czech design magazine Dolce Vita, as well as high-end international outlets like the website Coolhunting and Mark magazine. He also takes part in projects around Europe as part of the Okolo design collective, which produces an impressive magazine of its own. Our tour of “Adam Štěch’s Prague” begins downtown on the plaza beside the National Theatre and behind the institution’s futuristic New Stage building.

Vadim Erent runs Insight Cities, a tour company that promises to give visitors a deeper perspective on the cultural and political histories of more than half a dozen cities, including Berlin and New York. The firm began here in Prague, where the Russian-born US citizen has been living for the last 11 years. And our tour of “Vadim Erent’s Prague” begins near his Letná home, specifically on a bench overlooking Stromovka Park by the Místodržitelský letohrádek, or Governor’s Summer Palace.

Among the small number of Czech directors in competition at the Karlovy Vary festival, which gets underway next weekend, will be documentarian Martin Dušek, with his latest work Into the Clouds We Gaze. The witty filmmaker, who comes from the North Bohemian town of Česká Lípa, suggests as the starting point for our tour of “his Prague” the place where he works. One of the city’s most distinctive Functionalist structures, it’s a large building by Vltavská metro station owned by developer Orco and currently home to rather rough and ready office

Poet, novelist and translator Justin Quinn has called Prague home since 1992. A professor of English at Charles University and the University of West Bohemia in Plzeň, the Irishman has lived in contrasting parts of the Czech capital, from Malá Strana (which we’ll visit later) to the concrete jungle of Jižní Město. But our tour of Justin Quinn’s Prague begins at another old ‘hood of his, Nusle – specifically at the foot of the Nuselské schody, or Nusle Steps. Why there?

Martin Pošta made a mark on Prague in October when his Signal festival of light installations and video mapping brought an estimated quarter of a million people onto the streets over one weekend. The Croatian-born film school graduate – and former director of Fresh Film Fest – lives on Polská St. in Vinohrady, right by Riegrovy sady park. On a bench overlooking the park’s longest slope, Martin Pošta explains why he’s chosen this particular spot to begin our tour of “his Prague”.

Who better to show us around “his Prague” than US author and journalist Mark Baker? After all, the seasoned travel writer has penned a number of guidebooks to the city since moving here at the very start of the 1990s. Our short tour begins in the district that Baker has called home in recent years, Bubeneč, a quiet, leafy part of Prague 6.

Jana Zielinski is a co-founder of Prague’s annual Designblok festival, which has done a huge amount to boost the profile of design in the Czech Republic in the last decade and a half. She also co-runs the gorgeous, spacious Křehký Gallery in an old industrial part of the Holešovice district – and it is there that our tour of “Jana Zielinski’s Prague” begins.

A member of the country’s large Vietnamese community, Mimi Lan Nguyen came to the Czech Republic in the early 1990s while still in her early teens. Today she is a successful fashion designer with a flagship boutique on the capital’s Štěpánská St. The shop is actually on the outside of the grand city centre Lucerna Palace, and it was there that Mimi began introducing me to “her Prague”.

Karel Och, who hails from a small town in the Vysočina region, is artistic director of the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival. For most of the year, Och and his colleagues are based in a building on Panská St. in downtown Prague, directly behind the Holy Cross Church on the bustling Na příkopě. Our tour of “his Prague” begins in his cosy office, which at present overlooks a construction site on Panská.

An American writer and journalist specialised in travel and food and drink (in particular beer), Evan Rail has been living in the Czech capital since the year 2000. For the last half decade, he’s called the city’s Petrské náměstí home; in this edition of My Prague, Rail shows me around his neighbourhood, which despite being only five minutes’ walk from Náměstí Republiky is still somewhat off the beaten path.