Ten centuries of European architectural heritage
Halfway along the impressive southern rampart of Prague Castle stands the Ludvík wing, a five-storey bastion built between 1503 and 1509 and named after Ludvík Jagellonský, ruler of Bohemia from 1516 to 1526. Its architect, the master builder...
Orlík takes its name from ‘orel’, the Czech word for an eagle; and indeed for many centuries this rocky outcrop rising 200 feet above the river Vltava must have made a dramatic eyrie for the original fortified manor....
Visitors to Prague cannot fail to be struck by the number of monuments and locations that bear the name ‘Charles’. They include the city’s mediaeval university, its largest public square, and of course its magnificent stone bridge: three...
The classical-style frieze above the entrance to this residential building in Prague’s Vinohrady district presents an idealized portrait of domestic life in communist Czechoslovakia. Typically for a work of socialist realism — the only approved form of public...
The monumental congregational church in Prague-Dejvice was designed by Jiří Stibral and built by Alois Zima between 1925 and 1927. Combining religious, educational and residential functions, the building today continues to serve as the headquarters of the Czechoslovak...
Built between 1890 and 1891 on high ground of Střešovice to the west of Prague, this romanesque-style church provided a much-needed place of worship for a rapidly expanding population. The church’s dedication to Saint Norbert – a 12th...
The 14th-century church of Saint Stephen was one of two ecclesiastical foundations built specifically to serve the parish of Charles IV’s New Town. Construction took place between 1351 and 1392, close to the existing rotunda originally dedicated to...
The village of Lány, twenty miles from Prague, stands in a region of fields and forests used for hunting since at least the tenth century. But it was in 1587 that Emperor Rudolf II forged a powerful link...
Completed in 1875, the Provincial Maternity Hospital in Prague represented the state of the art in nineteenth-century obstetrics. At that time, many young mothers died in childbirth; so in 1867, on the orders of Count Franz Thun-Hohenstein, construction...
The north Bohemian town of Liberec may be only seventy miles from Prague but its origins as an important centre of the Flemish and German textile trade are evident everywhere – not least in the soaring opulence of...
