New Design Chapter: The Opening of Plojhar Family’s Spectacular Stationery Store in Prague

A turnover of over 200 million per year and 135 years of existence are respectable figures, thanks to which the business of Bohumil and Petr Plojhar appears in our ranking of family companies. Today, however, they are turning the page and starting a new, significantly more design chapter.

Here he represents the store that they just opened in Prague’s Jindřišská Street. The project is in charge of the successor of the family business, Jakub Plojhar, who entrusted the design of the store to the studio Atelier Monday, and Anna Teresa Hamerská and Tereza Ptáček are behind it. The designers share friendship and roots with the Plojhar family – they are South Bohemian families who are proud patriots of their region.

Almost everyone in České Budějovice knows the name Plojhar because the stationery store is located in Široká Street, in a historic building in the very center of the city. The store was designed fifteen years ago by edit! architects, led by the then studio partner Lenka Míková.

Entering the Prague scene, however, required a different concept. Atelier Monday chose as its main motif a wall installation made of cardboard tubes, referring to the sources of the Plojhar family’s main business success.

“Up to ninety-five percent of our turnover is the custom production of transport packaging. We have approximately three hundred and fifty regular customers, mainly from the region of central and southern Bohemia and the Highlands,” reveals Jakub Plojhar.

So why are they opening a spectacular stationery store right now in Prague? “We first thought about opening a paper shop in Prague back in 2013, we even negotiated with the owners of a space near Jindřišská, but in the end it didn’t work out,” recalls Jakub Plojhar.

“We decided that until we found the perfect location for our store, we wouldn’t break the bank. We don’t need massive growth. It wasn’t until this year that we found the ideal store,” states the man who represents the fifth generation in the company and is in charge of development.

He took over honest production from his ancestors, which still takes place in the factory near České Budějovice. The approach to the customer should be innovative, as should a number of its own products, which the company is still planning – among them, for example, cardboard furniture.

The one hundred and ten square meter office, in which the Plojhar family invested 1.5 million crowns, will offer not only a charming assortment of paper products, but also workshops from autumn.

Photo by Adriana Fialová

“They will take place in the back of the shop, on a cardboard table that also comes from our workshop. It will be, for example, a workshop on gift wrapping, calligraphy, origami or thematic making of lanterns. We have skilled people and lecturers in the team,” praises the youngest of the Plojhars.

Until you visit the new store, consider the visit as an opportunity to stop time. Not only will the overall coziness of the space help you, but also the history of the owners, whose one hundred and thirty-year-old story has not been interrupted by any social changes.

2023-09-01 16:00:57
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