GAD / ILLUSTRATED STUDY

Masaryčka: an office building at the station edge

Zaha Hadid Architects uses terraces, a shaded facade and active street edges to give a Prague office development a civic role.

Illustrated study · Office architecture

Gold-colored fins curve around Masaryčka’s end facade and ground-level entrance.Photo: ONplan · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Image source · Resized and converted to WebP

A frontage with several responsibilities

Masaryčka occupies a difficult Prague site between railway platforms, Na Florenci street and an elevated road. Rather than presenting a single freestanding object, its two buildings bring offices and retail to this transport edge. The useful question is how a workplace meets several kinds of city movement at once. Ground-level shops give the frontage a reason to be visited beyond office hours; proximity to rail does not by itself make an inviting street.

The facade changes the scale

Gold-toned fins turn the long elevation toward a more vertical expression at its western end. ZHA describes the fins as summer shading. Terraces interrupt the mass and provide outdoor access from the offices. Read together, these devices make the envelope more than a graphic surface: it mediates between a large commercial floor plate, the pedestrian view and the skyline.

Keep building and station works distinct

The owner identifies separate office and retail areas and reports LEED Platinum for both buildings. The adjacent railway modernisation is a distinct project; ZHA’s page places those works in a 2026 programme. The architectural lesson lies in coordinating boundaries and routes without treating every neighbouring improvement as part of the building’s completed scope.