an illustrated guide to Czech architecture and heritage
The vicinity of the Czech National Bank has been a trading quarter ever since the Middle Ages, when precious metals regularly arrived at the city’s east gate from the silver mines of Kutná Hora. Nearby is the Týn...
In the latter half of the nineteenth century, Czech politics was dominated by one question: how to gain greater autonomy from the Austrian empire (or indeed how to break with Austria entirely). The argument was supported by a...
Radio broadcasts in Czechoslovakia began on 18 May 1923, making the fledgling state only the second country in Europe after Britain to enjoy such a regular service. For the first two years, programmes were broadcast from a scout-tent...
On the eastern slopes of Letná hill, overlooking the Vltava, this unusual modernist pavilion looks as if it has been teleported from some future time into its present location. In actual fact that’s not far off the truth....
Kamelot, Karel Dvořák, 1925 The Business Academy of Prague, founded in the district of Karlín in 1909, was obliged to move to larger premises in Vinohrady in 1925. Its new home was a constructivist building by František Kavalír...
The completion in 1891 of the new museum at the top of Wenceslas Square was the crowning achievement of the Czech National Revival, a statement of nationhood that anticipated by thirty years the founding of the Czechoslovak state...
On its plain white pedestal, the graceful ‘Dívka s holubicí’ (Girl with a Dove) by sculptor Jiří Kryštůfek is a strikingly elegant work of public art. The simplicity of the piece conceals the skilful artistry by which the...
The village of Chlumec, fifty miles east of Prague, came into the possession of the noble family of Kinský at the start of the seventeenth century. In 1721, Count František Ferdinand Kinský invited the baroque architect Jan Blažej...
Prague is a city full of stories of artificial human beings, from the Golem, a mud-man devised by the 16th century Rabbi Loew to protect the Jewish community, to the bizarrely mummified remains of Klement Gottwald, the first...
Entering the city limits, drivers approaching Prague from the north encounter a dramatic sight. Dominating the high ridge to their left, a brooding neo-baroque chateau suddenly hoves into view like a great three-storey ship sailing the horizon. Nowadays...
In the seventeenth century, there grew on the sloping hillside east of Karlovo náměstí (Charles Square) a vineyard where, in 1691, a small wooden chapel was established in memory of John Nepomuk by Kristian Florian Heger. The chapel...
