an illustrated guide to Czech architecture and heritage
Prague 10 includes Vršovice and parts of Malešice, Michle, Strašnice, Vinohrady, Záběhlice and Žižkov
Of the many celebrated Czech architects of the first decade of the twentieth century, perhaps the most prolific was the Austrian-born Osvald Polívka. Best known for civic projects such as Prague’s new City Hall (1911) and Municipal House...
The ornate Parisian-style apartment blocks of Kodaňská Street and its immediate neighbourhood are some of the most impressive domestic houses in Prague. But even those not facing directly onto that grand boulevard still have a distinctiveness and charm...
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, the oldest extant...
Since the early 1920s, pressure had grown for a Hussite church in the neighbourhood of Vršovice. The plan was finally realized in 1930 by the architect Karel Truksa, and the church constructed within a year by Václav Nekvasil...
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 parish had to...
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 near Wenceslas Square,...
A fine set of early twentieth-century apartments in Vršovice, near the border with Vinohrady. The style combines the architectural language of the neo-baroque with decorative elements of art nouveau.
Similar in date and style to Josef Gočár’s St Wenceslas Church in Vršovice, the nearby Hussite church on Dykova Street is the work of constructivist architect Pavel Janák. The foundation stone was laid in October 1930, but it...
The Občanská Záložna (Civic Savings Bank) in Vršovice was founded in 1888, and these splendid art nouveau headquarters date from 1912. The principal architect was Antonín Balšánek, whose name is grandly inscribed in the vestibule along with those...
This extraordinary facade is the entrance to an art nouveau studio built between 1908 and 1911 by Ladislav Šaloun (1870-1946), the Czech sculptor whose main claim to fame is the memorial to Jan Hus in Prague’s Old Town...
