Tagged: facades

Praha-Bubny Railway Station

Praha-Bubny Railway Station

The first trains passed through this northern suburb of Prague in 1850, but it was not until 1873 that a station was constructed to service the coal industry that had grown up in the loop...

Hospital and Church of the Holy Trinity, Kuks

Hospital and Church of the Holy Trinity, Kuks

Almost exactly halfway between the cities of Hradec Králové and Trutnov in the north of the Czech Republic, the river Elbe flows through the pleasant wooded valley of Kuks, from which the land rises gently...

veltrusy chateau 2

Veltrusy Chateau

Situated on the banks of the river Vltava about twenty miles north of Prague, the chateau of Veltrusy was commissioned in 1704 for the counts of Chotek. Work began around the year 1706 to a...

pilgrimage church of our lady victorious bila hora 2

Pilgrimage Church of Our Lady Victorious, Bílá Hora

The high ground to the west of Prague called Bílá Hora was the scene of one of the earliest engagements of the Thirty Years’ War. The short but significant ‘Battle of the White Mountain’ of...

Polská 2400/1: Sokol building, Vinohrady

Polská 2400/1: Sokol building, Vinohrady

Thirty years before the foundation of the modern Olympic movement, the German-born art historian Miroslav Tyrš revived the ancient ideal of physical and spiritual improvement in the Czech lands. His brainchild, the Sokol (‘Falcon’) organization,...

Větrná ulička, Liberec: Waldstein houses

Větrná ulička, Liberec: Waldstein houses

Houses with exposed timber frames (fachwerk) are a rare sight in the Czech Republic, but in towns where German influence was historically strong, there remain some good examples. In Liberec, this narrow lane near the...

Liberec Town Hall

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...

Hybernská 11 and Havlíčkova 1: Lannův dům

Hybernská 11 and Havlíčkova 1: Lannův palác

Built on the site of the fifteenth-century House of the Black Hare, this neo-renaissance palace in the Venetian style was erected in 1857 for Vojtěch Lanna, founder of the Kladno steelworks. As often in the...

Petrohradská 141/52: Vila Jitřenka

Petrohradská 141/52: Vila Jitřenka

This villa by the banks of the Botič – currently home to the Prague Gentlemen’s Fly Fishing Club – dates from 1738, and is therefore only slightly younger than the nearby Church of St Nicholas,...

Chodov Fortress (Chodovská tvrz)

Chodov Fortress (Chodovská tvrz)

Deep in the southern suburbs of Prague – an area now dominated by highways and housing estates – this thirteenth-century gothic fortress is an unexpected witness to a much older history, dating from the time...