Secrets of the Prague Metro: Part 2

The plates are a mix of “champagne” and a color unique to each station, e.g. Staroměstská has red ones to distinguish it from the others. The design was the brainchild of Jaroslav Votruba, whose initial plan didn’t include the bumps.

“If the surface were flat, it would warp from the heat. The circular segment strengthened the plate,” he said. As he spoke, his hands fashioned the space in front of him. Pillars were signaled with an up and down gesture. The word ‘platform’ was accompanied by his hands moving out. It was like he was conjuring up the structures as we spoke.

Mr. Kyllar was more closely involved with some of the designs on Line B (Yellow). The intention was to achieve a different effect, so each line had its own individual character. The glass ‘lenses’ at Náměstí republiky were partly his idea.

“The lenses have a cut of a certain angle which creates a reflection of light so that it reflects directly. It means that on the outer surface of the tiles, it isn’t necessary to use any other covering,” he said. Most noticeably, the concave lenses create the illusion that they bubble outward. In addition, their reflective surface ensures less light is lost. Much of Line B’s decorative features were damaged during the 2002 floods and had to be replaced.

An additional illusion was at least attempted for the stations on Line C (Red). The stations are meant to look like continuations of the world at street level. “The transition of the street into the underground is quite an interesting trick,” Kyllar said.

For this reason, the green line is especially deep so that it doesn’t disturb the heritage and it can go beneath the Vltava. The downside is the length of the platform to surface journey.

“It prolongs the time spent in the tunnels,” Mr. Kyllar said, referring to the distance. The time is even longer today because the escalators run at 0.75 m/s, instead of 0.9 m/s, as they did in the past.

The former names are:

Some of the stations bear traces of their former identities. Anděl has in its southern vestibule (the one for the bus station on Na Knížecí) a relief with Moskva/Praha still built into the wall. Other artwork isn’t so visible.

It wasn’t just the connection with the past regime that made changes welcome. According to Pavel Fojtik, the head of the archive at the Prague Transit Company, the names were confusing because people had a tendency to associate the names with already existing landmarks, and assumed the station was close to the similarly named street or square when it wasn’t.

In the past, just as today, the stations have nicknames. Many of them are abbreviations: I.P. Pavlova is Ípák and Náměstí míru is Mírák. It stands to reason that Leninova would be Leninka. But some of the names are quite creative. Which station are people referring to when they talk about Slintáč or Slinták? If you thought I.P. Pavlova, then you’re right. It’s from the Czech verb slintat – meaning to drool – a reference to the experiments with dogs made by psychologist I.P. Pavlov, whom the station is named after.

The older trains – the Ečs – were fully replaced by 1997 because they were seen as being too old and outdated. You can see of them at the Public Transport Museum.

You may remember from the previous article that we mentioned a rumor which alleged the Soviet trains were chosen after an act of sabotage on the Czech prototype – a story refuted by the head archivist, Mr. Fojtik.

An open day in January 2013 gave an idea of the construction. The public could walk part of the tunnel from Veleslavín through Petřiny and out to Vypich for a total of three kilometers. No further secrets revealed themselves here, only the ingenuity and scale involved in constructing these tunnels.

The new extensions may not be shrouded in the same secrecy as when the Metro was built, but the system is sure to continue influencing Prague.

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