In Prague, Concrete Is Cool Again 25 Years After Communism

When the totalitarian regime in Czechoslovakia collapsed a quarter of a century ago, many predicted that paneláky—the crude, Socialist-era concrete apartment blocks built to house the proletariat—would be abandoned and torn down. After all, their brutalist architecture was conceived to discourage the very thing that modern societies value: a communal space where people can congregate.

Now, improbably, the buildings are getting a new lease on life. Unlike in Germany, where the paneláky were largely bulldozed to make room for new apartment blocks, the Czechs seem attached to them. To the point that many are pouring considerable sums into rehabbing them. “I’m so glad I finally convinced my husband last year that we should have the interior redone,” says Hana Hýlová, a copy studio clerk in her 50s who has lived in her 70-square-meter (750-square-foot) apartment in the southern Prague neighborhood of Jižní Město for 26 years. “I love modern design. I love my kitchen!”