Ten centuries of European architecture & heritage
Rising impressively from a rocky bluff south of the city, the ancient fortified settlement of Vyšehrad dates from the tenth century. The place is indelibly linked with the foundation of Prague, thanks largely to the...
Orlík takes its name from ‘orel’, the Czech word for an eagle; and indeed for many centuries this rocky outcrop rising 200 feet above the river Vltava must have made a dramatic eyrie for the...
Visitors to Prague cannot fail to be struck by the number of monuments and locations that bear the name ‘Charles’. They include the city’s mediaeval university, its largest public square, and of course its magnificent...
The monumental congregational church in Prague-Dejvice was designed by Jiří Stibral and built by Alois Zima between 1925 and 1927. Combining religious, educational and residential functions, the building today continues to serve as the headquarters...
The 14th-century church of Saint Stephen was one of two ecclesiastical foundations built specifically to serve the parish of Charles IV’s New Town. Construction took place between 1351 and 1392, close to the existing rotunda...
Completed in 1875, the Provincial Maternity Hospital in Prague represented the state of the art in nineteenth-century obstetrics. At that time, many young mothers died in childbirth; so in 1867, on the orders of Count...
Josef Mocker and František Mikš were at the forefront of the Gothic revival in the Czech lands. The former was the architect of the Church of Saint Ludmila in Vinohrady (1888-92) while the latter designed...
On a high ridge overlooking Prague’s Stromovka park stands the impressive Místodržitelský letohrádek (Governor’s Summer Palace). Though extensively modified in Strawberry Hill style between 1804 and 1805 by Georg Fischer, its tower contains an original...
In 1844, the architect Josef Kranner was commissioned to build this elaborate neo-gothic fountain in honour of the Habsburg emperor Francis II, who as Franz I of Austria ruled Bohemia from 1792 to 1835. 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...
