Emerging Prague: Holešovice

Once considered a dilapidated wasteland rife with backstreet drug deals and petty crime, Holešovice has spent the last decade trying to mold itself into a trendy residential community with an edgy industrial-chicvibe. It’s not quite there yet, but this once mainly working-class neighborhood certainly has a lot to offer thanks to steady gentrification that has refurbished aging apartment blocks and transformed former breweries and meat factories into upscale office, retail and cultural centers.

A paint warehouse, for example, is now home to La Fabrika’s expansive performing arts space, while the Dox Centre for Contemporary Art, a direct rival to the National Gallery’s Veletržní Palace, gave a sagging machine factory a much-needed facelift. Even the old slaughterhouse at Bubenské nábřeží found a new claim to fame when SaSaZu, a hip Asian fusion restaurant-nightclub combo, moved in a few years back. And the sleek A7 Office Center, billed as “multifunctional city center,” was renovated from an old 19th-century brewery with input from world renowned architect Frank Gehry (he of Dancing House fame) into one of Prague 7’s busiest commercial hubs.

Zielinski likens Holešovice to New York City’s Bronx district, a place full of telling contradictions: rough but likeable; dirty but artistic; modern but old; slightly dubious … but only down certain streets and generally late at night. “You still have the contrast between the very poor people, and there are some shops you still wouldn’t want to go into,” Zielinski says. However, there is definitely a lot worth checking out, too. Zielinski oversees Designblok, Prague’s premiere fall design and fashion week, and keeps tabs on the comings and goings of the neighborhood’s growing population of specialty shops, like the Czech furniture retailer Ton, which has a unit along Komunardů street near the Italian home accessories chain Kartell.