The History of Vienna’s Ringstraße, by Jiří Kupka
Speaknig today of coordination and interdisciplinary participation in large urban planning solutions, as on one hand is often the case, and nontransparent tenders and competitions, as is on the other, it is worth mentioning the historic example of the planning and realization of the Viennese Ringstraße. Not only the broad involvement of many of the then state administration and self-administration elements in all the stages of the process is to be pinpointed, but of professionals and partly the public too (publication of the results, exhibition, public discussion). The planning and realization process of the Ringstraße, interesting and inspirational even today, has rested on three pillars: an anonymous competition, a commission consisting of a wide range of specialists and politicians, and a fund for the city expansion financing the project by its own means, independently from public budgets. Just to compare, how many competitions there were in the 20th century for problematic locations in Prague (Letná, Pankrác, Old Town Hall) but all of them of no satisfactory result. This article outlines some specific stages of the Ringstraße planning process, surprisingly modern and entirely successful.
Flood Protection of the Town of Třebíč, by Lubor Herzán
The historic centre of Třebíč, Western Moravia’s major town of 40,000 inhabitants, is of undoubted qualities in terms of architecture, urban planning, and historic monuments. Important in the international context, Třebíč’s Jewish quarter and the Basilica of St. Procopius were inscribed to the prestigious UNESCO list of cultural and natural heritage sites in 2003 as the twelfth and so far last of the locations in the Czech Republic. However, this extraordinarily valuable territory is endangered by risk factors, one of the most relevant being the periodical inundations of the Jihlava river waters in the town centre. The population of this place always had to deal with this natural phenomenon, using methods corresponding to the technologies of their times. This article briefly describes the flood protection measures used from the Middle Ages to today.
Apllying the Concept of Biotope Evaluation in the Landscape for the DOL Canal Project Assessment, by Ivo Machar
Part of many a territorial plan of Czech municipalities and higher administration units is the route of the DOL (Danube-Oder-Elbe) canal. The aim of this article is to demonstrate the possibilities of the application of the biotope valuing and pricing concept (Seják, Dejmal et al., 2003) for the assessment of the environmental impact of such a project of European importance in the landscape of Czech Republic’s fluvial plains. The analysis was carried out upon the data layers of the Natura 2000 biotope mapping system in a GIS environment. The results presented in this article contribute to the discourse of the DOL project evaluation within various physical planning concepts and documents (mainly the Spatial Development Policy of the Czech Republic and the Principles of Spatial Development of Regions).