Ten centuries of European architecture & heritage
In 1883 the publisher František Topič opened his first bookshop here on Národní třída (National Avenue). From its central location opposite the National Theatre, Topič was able to exert great influence as a promoter of...
In 1791 a vast outdoor exhibition took place in Prague to mark the coronation (as King of Bohemia) of the Holy Roman Emperor Leopold II. The celebrations included the first performance of Mozart’s penultimate opera,...
This corner apartment block was constructed between 1913 and 1914 by František Hodek, and is generally attributed to the cubist architect Josef Chochol. The building’s classical articulation is set off by Chochol’s trademark lozenges, whose...
The first village schoolmaster in Vršovice was appointed in the 17th century, and we know that in 1797 Matouš Holub was running a small school from his family cottage near the Botič stream. But the...
In September 1424, the radical Hussite warrior Jan Žižka (who four years earlier had won a significant victory against the Holy Roman Emperor Sigismund at Vitkov Hill) signed a treaty of reconciliation with the moderate...
Originally the headquarters of the First Czech General Reinsurance Bank, this handsome art nouveau building close to the National Theatre was constructed in 1904-5 to a plan by the architect Jiří Stibral. Additional features of...
Prior to the construction of the half-mile-long Rašín Embankment in 1904, visitors would have passed among the streets and low wooden buildings of ‘Podskalí’, a hamlet named for its position ‘under the rock’ of Vysehrad,...
Giuseppe Rangheri was born in Gora, on the shores of Lake Como, and came to Prague in the late 1700s when there was already a thriving silk market. He set up his original mulberry plantation...
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...
At the centre of Strossmayer Square in Holešovice stands the neo-gothic Church of Saint Anthony of Padua. If its profile looks faintly familiar, that’s because its soaring towers were deliberately modelled on those of the...
