an illustrated guide to Czech architecture and heritage
In 1791 a vast outdoor exhibition took place in Prague to mark the coronation (as King of Bohemia) of the Holy Roman Emperor Leopold II. The celebrations included the first performance of Mozart’s penultimate opera, La Clemenza di...
This corner apartment block was constructed between 1913 and 1914 by František Hodek, and is generally attributed to the cubist architect Josef Chochol. The building’s classical articulation is set off by Chochol’s trademark lozenges, whose converging diagonals combine...
The collapse of the Austro-Hungarian empire in 1918 saw the emergence of a number of independent European nation-states, of which Czechoslovakia was one. Instrumental in the creation of the new republic was the then president of the United...
The first village schoolmaster in Vršovice was appointed in the 17th century, and we know that in 1797 Matouš Holub was running a small school from his family cottage near the Botič stream. But the parish had to...
In September 1424, the radical Hussite warrior Jan Žižka (who four years earlier had won a significant victory against the Holy Roman Emperor Sigismund at Vitkov Hill) signed a treaty of reconciliation with the moderate Utraquists which temporarily...
Originally the headquarters of the First Czech General Reinsurance Bank, this handsome art nouveau building close to the National Theatre was constructed in 1904-5 to a plan by the architect Jiří Stibral. Additional features of the facade, gables...
A mere thirty years after the arrival of the first railways in Prague, the urgent need for expansion resulted in the demolition of the original neo-renaissance Franz Josef station. Its replacement – built between 1901 and 1909 to...
This framed Mother and Child appears on the ornamental facade of a neo-baroque house in Prague’s New Town. The building, at the corner of the major thoroughfare Ječná (Barley Street), is home to a traditional Czech pub named...
On a high ridge overlooking Prague’s Stromovka park stands the impressive Místodržitelský letohrádek (Governor’s Summer Palace). Though extensively modified in Strawberry Hill style between 1804 and 1805 by Georg Fischer, its tower contains an original gothic staircase dating...
Prior to the construction of the half-mile-long Rašín Embankment in 1904, visitors would have passed among the streets and low wooden buildings of ‘Podskalí’, a hamlet named for its position ‘under the rock’ of Vysehrad, the ancient fortified...
