Masarykovo nábřeží 248/16, Hlahol building

This art nouveau house on the right bank of the Vltava was built between 1903 and 1905 for the Prague choral society ‘Hlahol’ – whose name means something like ‘clamour’ or ‘peal’. The interior is decorated with a series of paintings by the celebrated Alfons Mucha; the exterior, shown here, has a mosaic with an allegory of music by the artist Karel Klusáček.

The inscription below the mosaic reads: ‘Zpěvem k srdci, srdcem k [vlas]ti’: ‘With song in our heart and our heart in the motherland’, a motto as appropriate today as it was 150 years ago when the society was founded.

Facade of the building, with commemorative plaques in honour of (left to right) Hlahol conductors Karel Bendl, Bedřich Smetana and Karel Knittl