Staroměstské náměstí: Jan Hus Memorial
This monumental bronze of the religious reformer Master Jan Hus – flanked by victorious troops of the 15th century Hussite wars but also by the exiled protestants of the 17th century Thirty Years’ War –...
Tagged: czech history
28. října 378/15: The Golden Hive
Two separate mediaeval houses stood here at the lower end of Wenceslas Square until the year 1572, when the Betengl (or Wettengl) family had them joined together and substantially enlarged. In 1621, the property was...
Karlův Most: Charles Bridge
In 1170, King Vladislav II of Bohemia commissioned a stone bridge connecting the Old Town and Malá Strana. Built just downstream of the present structure, the surviving buttress of the former bridge can still be...
Rašínovo nábřeží 47/8
This triple villa was constructed for three sets of clients: the central white house for the brothers Jan and Josef Bayer, and the red houses on either side for two property developers, František Hodek and...
Podplukovníka Sochora 694/24
John of Luxembourg (King of Bohemia 1310-1346) is one of three rulers in this neo-renaissance frieze by the 19th-century painter Mikoláš Aleš. He is flanked by his successor Charles IV (King of Bohemia 1346-1378, Holy...
Slavíčkova 151/15
The first duke of Bohemia to be officially crowned as King was Vratislav II, in 1085. A strong proponent of the Slavonic rite – which had been banned by the papacy for the previous two...
Malostranské náměstí: Cathedral of Saint Nicholas
The monumental cathedral of Saint Nicholas was begun in the late 1670s as the centrepiece of the recatholicization of Bohemia following the Thirty Years’ War. In 1702 the great Prague architect Kryštof Dientzenhofer took over...
Maiselova 41/21
The ‘asanace’ (or cleansing) of the old Jewish town of Prague began in earnest in 1895. Synagogues were preserved, but six hundred ordinary dwellings were destroyed in favour of a ambitious new streetplan. Central to...
Týnská ulička 611/10
A house has stood on this spot in Týn Alley since at least the 13th century, when it was the home of doctor Jakub Lavín of Ottenfeld. From 1405 until the 1600s the building was...
Jana Masaryka 165/22: Memorial to Jan Masaryk
Jan Masaryk was born in 1886 at the Villa Osvěta in Vinohrady. The third child of Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk, the first president of Czechoslovakia, Jan acted as ambassador to London from 1925, and as Foreign...
