Prague’s Industrial Palace is whole again after eighteen years: free open days, 17 and 18 October 2026

The Industrial Palace at Prague’s Výstaviště is whole again. Built in 1890–1891 to a design by the architect Bedřich Münzberger for the Jubilee Provincial Exhibition, it was the first prefabricated steel-frame and glass structure in the Czech lands, and it survived everything the twentieth century put in front of it, including the alterations made for the congresses of the Communist Party. On 16 October 2008 a fire destroyed its left wing entirely; the central hall and the right wing were saved. The rebuilding began on 1 February 2022, eighteen years after the flames, and was finished in September 2026 by a consortium led by Metrostav with Syner and Avers, to a design by SGL Projekt, at a cost of about three billion Czech crowns. The work went well beyond the lost wing: the steel structure and the stained glass were repaired, the socialist-era additions removed, the southern portal and the clock tower restored, and the St Wenceslas crown put back on the tower.

The building is being handed back to the public in stages. Guided tours ran from 25 September to 11 October 2026 at a symbolic 91 crowns — the number is the year 1891 — and sold out; the venue says further dates are being prepared with Prague City Tourism. The first event held in the restored central hall was the second edition of DesignBlok Talks, on 6 and 7 October 2026, with more than forty Czech and international architects and designers.

Then, because the demand was higher than anyone expected, Výstaviště Praha added open days: on Saturday 17 and Sunday 18 October 2026 the Industrial Palace can be visited free of charge and without a guide, at each visitor’s own pace. Visiting hours and the practical arrangements are published by the venue on its own pages.

Practical details

• When: Saturday 17 and Sunday 18 October 2026, open days (hours announced by the venue)
• Where: Průmyslový palác, Výstaviště Praha, Výstaviště 67, Bubeneč, 170 00 Prague 7, Czech Republic
• Admission: free, unguided
• Organised by: Výstaviště Praha, a.s.
• Information: telephone +420 702 128 232 (weekdays 8 am – 5 pm), and the venue’s own pages for the Industrial Palace

Cultural Heritage Online lists this weekend for readers who follow nineteenth-century iron-and-glass architecture and the long work of bringing a burnt building back.