ABSTRACT
Nationalism played a role in the construction of Czech attitudes toward interurban knowledge transfer across borders but, as this chapter shows, so did competition among experts in Prague for authority and the abilities of insiders and outsiders to cooperate with one another. To shed light on conditions for knowledge transfer, this chapter discusses two planning projects in the Bohemian capital, one carried out prior to World War I and the other conceived during the interwar period. For the pre-war example, the urban reconstruction of Josefov, Prague’s former Jewish ghetto, will be examined. For the interwar example, the work of Slovenian architect Jože Plečnik on the Prague Castle will be explored. The two projects shared something significant in common: both were perceived as important for the projection of Czech national status through the architecture of the capital city, and both garnered the attention of experts, trained at home and abroad, who used Prague’s landscape in their quests for leverage and sway. Studying the two undertakings together calls attention to ways in which the shifting power, priorities and personalities of experts inside and outside of nations can affect receptivity to foreign ideas and practices and, thereby, interurban knowledge transfer.
