In 2008, our studio was approached by the Benedictine Order of Břevnov Monastery with a question on how to proceed with the restoration of the monastery garden and the ruins of the orangery.

After the Benedictines were expelled in the 1950s, no one took care of the buildings in the garden or the garden itself. Even though it is a monument of extraordinary significance (the entire Baroque complex was designed by Kilian Ignaz Dientzenhofer), after half a century of neglect, the garden structures and terraces were in decay or had already disappeared. The original ornamental garden had been replaced with a lawn, the terrace walls were crumbling, and only a few walls of the orangery remained, with grass growing between them. The garden paths had vanished, and the fountain and drainage channels were lost beneath layers of soil. The task, therefore, was not a classical reconstruction but rather the restoration of what had nearly ceased to exist physically. What remained were fragments of masonry and archival documents. With the help of enlarged archival photographs and geodetic measurements, we gradually reconstructed the shapes and details of the original structure. Some elements were discovered only during construction—such as the large circular reservoir in front of the entrance, side tanks, and the entire hidden system of rainwater and heating channels.