Gulliver DOX Centre for Contemporary Art, Prague, Contemporary Czech Architecture, Photography
Gulliver DOX Centre for Contemporary Art in Prague
19 Jan 2022
Design: HAMR Hu? Architektury Martin Rajni?
Location: Prague, Czech Republic

Gulliver DOX Building
In 2014, HAMR Hu? Architektury Martin Rajni? were approached by the director and founder of the DOX Centre for Contemporary Art, Leo? Válka, who said he ?needed something for the roof?. They sketched out two variants of original wooden structures and he loved them. But he called the very next day to say he?d had a better idea: ?We?ll do it like a zeppelin!? This was the birth of a project that first bore the working title Ark of Freedom and was later definitively renamed Gulliver.
The zeppelin form is symbolic. The first zeppelins represented the optimistic ideals of unprecedented technological progress.

Their monumentality and hypnotic dignity continued to fascinate many generations even long after they had disappeared from the skies. Airships have always embodied the eternal human desire to fly, as well as a particular utopian ideal.

The basic skeleton of the zeppelin is composed of fourteen pieces of truss circles made from laminated larch wood, placed at intervals of two to three meters in a transverse direction, mutually interconnected by longitudinal wooden truss elements.

The structure is braced by steel cables. The load-bearing wooden structure of the zeppelin is suspended by, and anchored to, a tilted stee...