Ten centuries of European architecture & heritage
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...
Of the many celebrated Czech architects of the first decade of the twentieth century, perhaps the most prolific was the Austrian-born Osvald Polívka. Best known for civic projects such as Prague’s new City Hall (1911)...
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...
Born in 1818, František Ladislav Rieger was from his student days a passionate advocate of Czech nationalism. His 1848 speech in Vienna won him the admiration of František Palacký, who was to become not only...
Although agricultural trading had taken place in Prague since time immemorial, it was only in 1882 that plans were drawn up for a central exchange for arable commodities. In 1894 this first purpose-built corn exchange...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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 and...
