Ten centuries of European architecture & heritage
During the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, Prague was struck by devastating plagues, first in 1680 and again in 1787. The area of Olšany, then outside the city walls, was chosen to accommodate the dead. The...
Descended from a distinguished Austrian family, Count Johann Wenzel (Jan Václav) von Gallas managed an extensive diplomatic portfolio. As well as being Ambassador to London and the Hague during the War of the Spanish Succession,...
This smart neo-classical frontage in Vinohrady is a typical example of fin-de-siecle Prague townhouse architecture; it could easily have been transplanted from the British capital after which this desirable street is named.
The house known as ‘The Two Turtledoves’ was built in 1620 for the mayor of Malá Strana, Baltazar Globic. In 1726, it was remodelled by the architect Kilian Ignaz Dientzenhofer for the royal carpenter Josef...
Founded on 21 November 1344, Saint Vitus’s Cathedral in Prague Castle is the work of generations of master builders. The east end (to the right of this picture) was built by the French architect Matthew...
The oldest of the three Romanesque round churches in Prague, Saint Martin’s is also the earliest surviving structure in the ancient citadel of Vyšehrad, to the south of the city. The rotunda dates from the...
A magnificent double-height neo-classical doorway with ironwork grille and triumphal embellishments: one of a number of grand residential statements on a stretch of the embankment adjacent to Kampa island.
‘U tři seker’ (The Three Axes) is one of several houses on this street in Prague’s Castle District to retain their original house signs. This one refers to the story that a carpenter once lived...
‘D[ominus] Matthias El[ectus] Rom[anus] Imp[erator] S[emper] Aug[ustus] Hung[ariae] Boh[emiae] Rex etc. F[ieri] F[ecit] An[n]o MDCXIV’ ‘Master Matthias, elected Roman Emperor, forever August, King of Hungary, Bohemia etc., ordered this to be built in the year...
Saint Martin’s is one of the oldest churches in Prague. An original romanesque temple of 1178 (parts of which survive) was incorporated into the defensive wall of the Old Town some time in the 13th...
