an illustrated guide to Czech architecture and heritage
The Catholic victory in the Thirty Years’ War (1618 to 1648) resulted in the most substantial changes to the fabric of the city since the 14th century. And the chosen medium for the church’s renewed authority across the kingdom was the uncompromising power of baroque sculpture.
These impressive formal gardens form part of the palace complex designed for Count Albrecht of Wallenstein by the architectural triumvirate of Giovanni Pieroni, Andrea Spezza and Nicolo Sebregondi. Covering four-and-a-half acres — nearly two hectares — the gardens...
The church of St James the Greater (sv. Jakub Větší) was founded in 1232 in Prague’s Old Town, possibly as a shrine to hold a relic of St James acquired by the Přemyslid king Otakar I. By 1244...
This two-storey townhouse ‘U Červeného pole’ (‘The Red Field’) is an ancient survivor in a street otherwise dominated by much taller buildings from the 1900s, such as the nearby ‘U Myšáka’. The earliest records show that until 1397...
This early baroque palace in the Malá Strana district was built between 1662 and 1675 for Jan Hartvik, count of Nostitz (‘Nostic’ in Czech orthography). For many years attributed to Francesco Caratti, later analysis suggests that the palace...
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...
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...
Originally a shrine to the Virgin built by the Cistercian order from nearby Plasy, the Church of the Annunciation at Mariánská Týnice rises impressively from the open countryside of Western Bohemia, just north of Plzeň. The records tell that...
The Benedictine convent of St George at Prague Castle was already long established when, in 1228, King Otakar I of Bohemia gifted the nearby village of Břežany to the nuns. The village, whose name comes from a word...
One of the earliest baroque buildings in Bohemia, the church of the Holy Trinity at Zahořany near Křešice was built between 1653 and 1657 by the Italian architect Bernardo Spineta from nearby Litoměřice. The church and its campanile...
