Žižkov Freight Station opened for regular service on 1 March 1936 and it represented the first stage in the implementation of the ‘Scheme of Future Modifications to the Railways in Prague’ (and also the last one actually carried out), which had been drawn up in 1927 by the state’s chief railway engineer, Miroslav Chlumecký (1878–1957). It was based on the North American style of multi-level stations accompanied by multistorey buildings, in particular the types of structures built reinforced-oncrete with flat slabs supported on mushroom columns, such as the Soo Line Freight Terminal in Chicago (1914) or the Pennsylvania Railroad Freight Station in Philadelphia (1917). The prevailing direction of Prague’s freight transport determined the size of the two parallel freight- and warehouses: the northern one was a shorter, three-bay building with one underground level and it served the outbound track, while the southern one was a longer, four-bay building with two underground levels and it served the inbound track. However, Chlumecký was able to vertically separate the different operators of the two-directional traffic using a method of three-dimensional routing diagrams that he came up with himself: he designated the inclined ground floor fringed with platforms for the state railway line’s operations, while private companies leasing use of the site were assigned the island platform, which was connected via ten steel elevator towers and bridges to the two floors of the warehouses and via the elevators to the underground levels, which were then connected by transverse tunnels to the road along the southern edge of the site. Architects Karel Caivas (1897–1961) and Vladimír Weiss (1897–1989)‚ however, were the ones who then gave this unique operational layout physical form in a thoroughly elaborated complex that perfectly fulfilled the idea of a building as a machine.
