Ten centuries of European architecture & heritage
Of all the work of Vojtěch Ignác Ullmann, perhaps the most outstanding is the building that today houses the Czech Academy of Sciences (Akademie věd). Ullmann’s grand neo-renaissance plan saw off competition from a large...
Born in 1818, František Ladislav Rieger was from his student days a passionate advocate of Czech nationalism. His 1848 speech in Vienna won him the admiration of František Palacký, who was to become not only...
Although agricultural trading had taken place in Prague since time immemorial, it was only in 1882 that plans were drawn up for a central exchange for arable commodities. In 1894 this first purpose-built corn exchange...
In the latter half of the nineteenth century, Czech politics was dominated by one question: how to gain greater autonomy from the Austrian empire (or indeed how to break with Austria entirely). The argument was...
Vyšehrad cemetery was established in 1869 as a national burial ground for eminent Czechs from all walks of life, but especially those from the arts, the sciences, and the world of politics. Among its well-known...
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...
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...
The distinctive russet-coloured Vinohradská tržnice (Vinohrady market hall) was constructed on the site of a former machine factory in 1902, one of several new covered marketplaces built at that time to serve Prague’s rapidly expanding...
This neo-renaissance secondary school in Prague 2 was constructed by Josef Franzl from a plan by the great Prague architect Antonin Turek, who was also responsible for the beautiful Vinohrady water tower and numerous other...
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,...
