How Nový Bor glassmakers restored Prague's Industrial Palace windows

After four years of extensive restoration, Prague's Industrial Palace is reopening on the exhibition grounds — the building whose left wing was destroyed by fire in 2008. One of the key contractors on the reconstruction was Kolektiv Ateliers, a company from Nový Bor, and its founder and CEO, Michal Vlček, has described just how challenging the work on more than five thousand stained-glass windows turned out to be.

According to the entrepreneur, this was a truly massive undertaking for the glassmaking craftsmen: they had to restore the sparkle and colour to a huge number of stained-glass panels, many of which had been damaged by time and by the aftermath of the fire.

The shortage of certain shades of glass became so severe that the company had to buy up the entire stock available anywhere in Europe of certain colours. After that, they had to wait for a new shipment from the United States, since the European market simply couldn't meet an order of that size.

Some of the coloured glass turned out to be so specific that it had to be custom-made: today's stained-glass market, Vlček notes, simply isn't built for purchases on this scale.

The work of Kolektiv Ateliers became an important part of the larger project to restore this historic landmark — the reopening of the renovated Industrial Palace is scheduled for 24 September, and the craftsmen from Nový Bor made a notable contribution to that milestone.