Reboarding our tour bus at Prague Castle, we went on to our next stop, which proved to be on the west bank of the Vltava River, near Čech Bridge. Before leading us across the bridge, our local guide Alexandra explained to us that on the hillside directly above the end of the bridge had once stood a 15.5 meter (51 feet) granite statue of Joseph Stalin. Erected in 1955, it was the world’s largest representation of the Soviet dictator. It was demolished in 1962. The plinth on which it stood was left vacant until 1991, when a 23-meter (75-foot) tall silent metronome was erected there. The metronome was not visible from where we stood, so I didn’t get a photo of it. You can find a picture of it on its website.
The Čech bridge is named after Svatopluk Čech (21 February 1846 – 23 February 1908), a nineteenth-century Czech writer, journalist and poet. Not as famous as the Charles Bridge upstream, it is nevertheless a beautiful bridge, with elegant lighting standards on the sidewalks, and at either end pairs of soaring columns, topped with sculptures of the Roman goddess Victoria. It is also the only example of a large Art Nouveau bridge in the Czech Republic. The original design of the bridge called for sculptures of hydras and female torch-bearers to be installed with gas pipes in them so they could shoot flames on festive occasions. This feature was omitted when the bridge was built in 1908, but plans are afoot to complete its addition by 2025.
At the Čech Bridge, we were able to photograph some gorgeous views of the Vltava River and attractions on its banks. The western riverfront in this area is known as the Beneš Embankment, after the longtime president of Czechoslovakia; the eastern riverfront is called the Dvořák Embankment, after the great Czech 19th-century composer.
On the western side, near the bridge, stands the Chapel of St. Mary Magdalene, which has a rather unusual history. It was originally constructed in the 1630s as an oval rotunda, in the middle of a vineyard, according to the design of Italian architect Giovanni Battista de Barrifis. In 1648 it was captured by Swedish troops, who used it as a redoubt from which to bombard the defenders of the Old Town. Having survived that episode, it was demolished in 1783 in connection with the religious reforms of Joseph II and used as a timber yard. In 1908, when the Čech bridge was built, the site was acquired by the City of Prague, and the church was then restored to its original form. At that time it stood right in front of the entrance to the bridge. But in 1956 it was again threatened with destruction. The Communist regime had placed a gigantic statue of Joseph Stalin on the hillside above the bridge in 1955, and then decided to build a huge staircase to provide access to the statue. This in turn required clearing away the Chapel of St. Mary Magdalene so that traffic could continue to access the bridge. To stave off the demolition of the chapel, an academic named Stanislav Bechyne came up with an audacious plan to pick up the chapel and move it 30 meters upstream on the riverbank. Somehow the government was persuaded to approve this project, and we now see the chapel a bit to the left of the bridge when viewing it from the opposite bank. In my picture of the chapel you can see the tip of the Metronome protruding from the trees in Letna Park on the hillside above.
From the same location – just west of the bridge on the Dvořák Embankment – a little to the left (west) of the Chapel, is the Prague Civic Swimming Pool (Občanská Plovárna). According to its website, it was “sensitively restored to its present form” in 2019. However that may be, today it is a multi-purpose pavilion hosting a venue for many types of events such as family gatherings, business conferences and concerts. It has a restaurant, bars, a glass gallery for enjoying the river views, and boat docks for catching river cruises.
On the hill above the Municipal Swimming Pool I caught sight of an exotic structure which looked to me like a cross between a Rococo church and an Art Nouveau bower. It turned out to be neither. According to its website, it is a splendid place to have a glass of wine. It was built in 1891 in Neo-Baroque style (really?) for the Prague Jubilee Czech Exhibition, in Holešovice district, somewhere east of its present location, to which it was relocated after the exhibition ended. It was named after the owner, Prince Vilem Hanavsky, who donated it to the City of Prague upon its completion. Currently it is home to an exclusive tourist-oriented restaurant; wonderful views of Prague may be had from its location, but the food and service are reputed to be so-so.
Farther still to the west one may discern a massive Neo-Baroque building with a green dome in the middle. This is the Straka Academy, designed by the architect Václav Roštlapil and built between 1891 and 1896 with the purpose of providing a residence for impoverished children of the Czech nobility. It is now the seat of government of the Czech Republic. From my vantage point on the Dvořák Embankment, it provided a stunning vertical montage together with the Hradschin Palace and St. Vitus Cathedral perched on the hill directly above it.
Crossing the Čech to the east bank, i.e. the Dvořák Embankment, on the left side one sees the massive bulk of the Fairmont Golden Prague Hotel, formerly known as the InterContinental Prague. The hotel was designed by a Czech architect, Karel Filsak, in Brutalist style and built by the state travel firm during the Communist era, opening in 1974. After the fall of the Communist regime it went through a number of owners and renovations, and now belongs to R2G, the investment group of Czech billionaire Oldřich Šlemr. Originally intended as a pricey luxury hotel for foreign diplomats, businessmen and celebrities, it is currently closed for still another renovation which promises to make it even more posh and pricey; it is scheduled to reopen in 2024.
To the north of the Čech Bridge is the Charles University Law School, and beyond it stands the Na Rejdišti Theater (Divadlo Na Rejdišti), a performing arts center, and the Concert Hall of the Prague Conservatory.
From the Čech Bridge, we continued southeast through Curie Square, named after Marie and Pierre Curie, the French-Polish scientists who discovered radium and won three Nobel prizes between them (two by Marie). This took us to Pařížská (Paris) Street, Prague’s most chic and expensive shopping district, but instead of continuing along that way we took a right onto Maiselov Street and plunged into the heart of the Josefov, the Old Jewish Quarter.
Maiselov Street is named after the 16th-century philanthropist and community leader Mordecai Meisel, who was so rich that he was not only able to rebuild the Prague Jewish ghetto but even to serve as Minister of Finance for the Austrian emperors and finance their wars against the Ottoman Turks. In his time the Jewish quarter reached the height of its prosperity. Conditions deteriorated in the 17th and 18th centuries. The Jews generally supported the Hapsburgs during the Thirty Years’ War, but in return for protection the emperors exacted sizeable loans from them, which depleted their wealth, and afterward, no longer needing their financial help so much, the Habsburgs turned hostile. In 1744 Maria Theresa expelled all the Jews from Prague, even though they constituted a quarter of the population there; this was so disastrous for the city’s economy that she was forced to allow them to return in 1748, but she also imposed onerous taxes and social restrictions on them. This situation began to change in 1781, with the accession of Joseph II to the Imperial throne. Joseph abrogated some restrictions on the Jews with the aim of increasing their usefulness to the state. Other strictures he left in force, though these were gradually abolished during the nineteenth century, especially in the wake of the revolution of 1848.
Following the issuance of Joseph’s Toleration Edict of 1781, the Jewish ghetto of Prague – the Židovská čtvrť – was renamed Josefov in his honor. Toward the end of the 19th century, a major civic project was initiated to remake Prague in the image of Paris. Its impact fell mainly on Josefov, where 600 dwellings were demolished to make way for a new street plan featuring a wide, tree-lined boulevard to be named after the reigning Russian Tsar, Nicholas II, who would not have been regarded as a very sympathetic personage by most of the Jews of Prague, or anywhere else. It is now known as Paris Street.
The redevelopment of Josefov, which began in 1893 and lasted until the outbreak of World War I, resulted not only in the creation of Paris Street but also the erection of numerous new and noteworthy landmarks throughout the old Jewish quarter. Maiselov Street, though not untouched, was less affected by the new construction than other streets, so to savor the atmosphere of what is left of old Josefov, one must make a detour to it.
At the north end of Maiselov, on the connector to Paris Street, stands a 7-story white tower with a red roof known as The First Redoubt (U První Reduty), home to an exclusive and well-reputed eatery called Les Moules Belgian Restaurant. The First Redoubt is the work of Bedrich Bendelmayer, a Prague architect who built edifices in the Viennese Secession spirit, an offshoot of the Art Nouveau movement. To be honest, I can’t always tell Art Nouveau from Baroque or Rococo, but the Redoubt looked quite impressive to me, and I wished I had the opportunity to try Les Moules also. Oh well, maybe next time.
When we turned the corner onto Maiselov Street, we encountered another Art Nouveau structure, though of a more restrained character. This is known simply by its address, Maiselova 41/21, and finding out more information about it wasn’t very easy. According to one source, the architecture “eschews art-nouveau floweriness for the more restrained motifs of the German ‘Biedermeyer’ style.” A team of two architects, Richard Klenka and František Weyr, were responsible for this as well as several other outstanding landmarks in Josefov, including the Old Synagogue Restaurant on Paris Street, which I missed because we detoured around it; but you can see beautiful pictures of it on the web. Maiselova 41/21 is an apartment building, completed in 1911, with lovely tile inlays featuring Jewish motifs around the windows, and a subdued but elegant entrance flanked by statues of Jewish figures, representing whom is uncertain; there is speculation that they might be Mordecai Maisel and his wife Frummet, but they both look like women to me.
On the opposite side of Maiselov Street, there is a quiet garden with a statue of Moses (which I could not see from the street), and just to the south of the garden is the so-called Old-New Synagogue (staronová synagoga). We are now plunging into the authentic pre-modern Jewish quarter. The Old-New Synagogue was built in 1270 and is Europe’s oldest active synagogue. The name “Old-New” alludes to the existence of an older synagogue in Prague, a few blocks away on Dušní Street, which was demolished in 1867 to make way for the Spanish Synagogue. The Old-New Synagogue was one of Prague’s first Gothic buildings and is considered an architectural treasure. There is an urban legend that a rabbi of the Renaissance era, Jehud Löwa ben Bezalel (1512 – 1609), created a golem which was stored in an attic of the building, and during World War II a Nazi agent tried to enter the attic and fell victim to the golem. But there is no confirmed evidence that any Nazis tried to enter the attic, and subsequent investigations of the attic have failed to find a golem. However, those results are inconclusive because none of the investigators who went into the attic ever came out again.
Well, that last sentence is my invention. But the next landmark after the Old-New Synagogue, at the corner of Maiselov and Ĉervená Streets, is the Jewish Town Hall, also known as Maiselov’s Town Hall since he was responsible for its construction in 1577. He also financed the construction in the same year of the High Synagogue, which is located just east of the Town Hall on what is now Paris Street. The original structure was Renaissance in style, but in 1689 a fire in the Jewish quarter damaged the building, and it was subsequently reconstructed in Baroque style. In 1754, after another destructive fire, the Town Hall façade was redone in Rococo style, and this time it was joined to the building just south of it, which then became part of the Town Hall. In 1908, during the Josefov redevelopment period, the razing of old houses left the next plot to the south of the Town Hall vacant, and a new addition to the Town Hall was built on the property.
There are two clocks on the oldest section of the Town Hall. One is a traditional clock using Roman numerals to indicate the hours and is mounted on a tower atop the building. The other is a Hebrew clock, installed in the gable; it uses Hebrew letters for the hours and runs backwards from what we normally consider clockwise. The Hebrew clock was installed in 1764 and still uses the original hand-wound clock mechanism.
Continuing south, we came to the corner of Maiselov and Široká Streets, where we encountered another imposing early-20th-century Art Nouveau building. Like Maiselova 41/21, it displayed no information other than the address Široká 56/10, plus a few shop names, and it was even more difficult to find information on. I eventually was able to determine that it was built in 1906-7 and that the architect was Josef Kovařovič (1875-1941). He is almost forgotten now, but in his day he was a prolific Prague architect credited with a number of late Art Nouveau apartment houses and commercial buildings throughout the city. The Široká 56/10 building is characteristic of his earlier style, with typical Art Nouveau features such as tropical scenes with nymphs and floral decorations; but he later moved on to a more “sober” and geometric style, and began incorporating Cubist elements into his designs.
When we reached Široká Street, we ended our detour and turned left to return to Paris Street. The ritzy shopping district of Josefov is not limited to Paris Street, but extends for a block or two either side of it. Široká Street in particular is lined with high-end boutiques. Since I care nothing for Rolex watches or Gucci footwear, and am a pauper anyway, I would normally never go near these kinds of shops; and in any case it was the architecture here which was interesting, not what kind of goods were for sale. Striding down the streets of Josefov, I was overwhelmed by Late Baroque, Rococo, Art Nouveau, Cubist and other styles in the towering structures on both sides of the street. As with Maiselova 41/21, there was nothing to identify the architect or the year of completion, and there were too many elegant edifices to research even a sizeable fraction of them; so I am merely presenting my photos here without any detailed descriptions.
Walking south on Paris Street, we shortly came to its spectacular end at the Old Town Square (Staroměstské náměstí). There we passed, on our right, the Temple of St. Nicholas, a Late Baroque church built between 1732 and 1737 on the site of a 14th-century Gothic church. That church had been taken over by the Hussites, but of course it was reconverted to a Catholic church during the Thirty Years’ War. In 1689 it was ravaged by fire, and the decision was made to tear it down and build a new church, but that was delayed until the 18th century. A famous Baroque architect, the younger of the illustrious father-son team of Christoph and Kilian Ignaz Dienzenhofer, was hired for the purpose and the new church was completed in 1737. (Kilian Ignaz Dienzenhofer was also the architect of Prague’s other Church of St. Nicholas, in Mala Strana.)
In 1871 the St. Nicholas temple was transferred to the Eastern Orthodox Church, which continued to use it until 1914. The Russian Tsar donated a crystal chandelier made of fine Bohemian Harrachov Crystal to it. After World War I, in 1920, the establishment of the Hussite Church of Czechoslovakia was proclaimed there, and since then it has remained the main Hussite Church of Prague. Right where Pařížská Street ends at Old Town Square, there is a fountain formed by sculpting the intertwined bodies of three dolphins, created in 1906 by the architect Rudolf Kříženecký, and by sculptor František Hnátka, who carved the dolphins. I found it quite enchanting, and it was a harbinger of many marvels found on Old Town Square.
The centerpiece of the square is a large monument to Jan Hus, sculpted by Ladislav Šaloun. The foundation stone was laid in 1903 and the monument was finally unveiled in 1915, on the 500th anniversary of Hus’ execution, in the middle of the World War I. The government – still the Habsburg monarchy of old – forbade holding any public celebration of the event. The dominant feature of the monument is a large statue of Jan Hus facing the Church of the Virgin Mary before Týn on the east side of the square. Also depicted on the monument are other figures of the era, including Hussite leaders, people martyred or forced into exile after the Battle of the White Mountain, and a young mother who symbolizes the rebirth of the Czech nation.
The Church of the Virgin Mary before Týn, in my admittedly untutored view, is the most unusual of all the churches I saw in Prague. It is also known as the Týn Church. The phrase in the church name “before Týn” evidently refers to the immediate area in which it is situated, which used to be called the Týnské dvor or “fenced courtyard.” It would be vulgar and in bad taste to make any remarks here about Týn gods, so I won’t do that. Anyway, it is a Late Gothic church with two towers, both 80 meters (262 feet) high, with eight smaller spires arranged in two groups of four on each of the main spires, creating a thorny appearance which is what makes it so unique. There appears to be some disagreement about the identity of the designers, whether he/they were local talent or the same men who designed St. Vitus – i.e. Matthias of Arras and Peter Parler. However, they and their workshops are believed to at least have had considerable influence on the design of the church. Construction began around 1360 and was mostly completed during the reign of George of Poděbrady, i.e. sometime between 1450 and 1471, though the southern tower was finished later, in 1511. A sculpture of George of Poděbrady was installed on the gable, below a huge golden chalice, the symbol of the Hussites. During that period the church was in fact controlled by the Hussites.
In 1626, during the re-catholicization of Bohemia, the statue of George of Poděbrady was replaced by an image of the Madonna, and the golden chalice was melted down to make a halo for the Madonna. However, these changes appear to have been rectified in modern restorations, at least it appears so to me – the chalice is definitely there, and the image above it looks more like a warrior king than a Madonna.
As with other old and venerable churches, the Týn church has suffered its share of wear and tear over the centuries, making repairs and remodeling necessary. In 1679, a lightning strike caused a terrible fire and burned out the Gothic vault of the nave, which was then replaced by a lower Baroque vault. In 1819, lightning struck the north tower and caused a fire which melted the bell there. However, neither of these mishaps, nor the various renovations, resulted in any Baroque or other non-Gothic modifications to the exterior, which has remained the same over the centuries. Baroque modifications did however invade the interior of the church; aside from the vault, these came mainly in the form of new altars and other accoutrements. From what I can gather, most of the original Gothic artwork remains in place.
Old Town Square is an overwhelming place. It would be overwhelming even without the crowds swarming over it, leaving one hardly any room to turn around. The square is lined with elegant five-story Baroque edifices that are painted in many different colors and contain all manner of establishments – banks, hotels, townhouses, museums, boutiques, bars, restaurants, cafés, souvenir shops, tour agencies, whatever. To identify and describe even a small fraction of the most memorable structures here would be a prodigious task, but fortunately it has already been done for me and the result is available online, along with many other details about the Old Town Square.
However, if you will indulge me, I’ll just highlight a few of my favorites. On its west side, Old Town Square is bordered by Míkulášská Street, where a pleasant little park is found, across the street from St. Nicholas Church on the north. There, where Míkulášská Street meets the Old Town Square, a left turn will take you onto Franz Kafka Square. At this corner also is found the Hotel Lippert, an unpretentious establishment which claims to be a small family hotel with a unique atmosphere and friendly staff. I can well believe the “unique atmosphere” claim since the hotel is just a few steps from the Old Town Hall itself (I’ll get to the Hall in due course). But I found the north side of the square next to St. Nicholas Church to be less crowded than the rest of Old Town Square, and the park is a nice place to relax.
On the rather more crowded southeast side of the square there is a building with a statue of St. Joseph on the second floor corner and an Erpet Crystal shop on the ground floor. This is the Ox House (the name of its 15th-century owner, Ochse, means ox in German), an early medieval edifice rebuilt in Gothic style around 1540, in Renaissance style after 1609 and in Baroque around 1740. In the 1930s it underwent still another remodeling which replaced the Gothic portal by a shop window. The original statue of St. Joseph dated from the 1750s but was lost and replaced by a copy. The Ox House is flanked by the Štěpánovský House, to which it is connected by two arches across Melantrichova Street, a narrow alley between them. Originally a Romanesque structure dating back to the 12th century, the Štěpánovský was rebuilt in Gothic style in the 14th century, again in Renaissance style in the 16th century, and finally in Baroque in the 17th, but retaining the Renaissance gables. The Gothic portal from the 14th century has also been preserved. It is colored in blue and yellow, and I thought that the its juxtaposition with the Ox House to its right, colored in contrasting shades of brown, made a pleasing combination.
My favorite, though, was the house bearing the Czech title U Minuty. This is clumsily translated in the online documentation as “House at the Minute“, or better, “Minute House.” But this label has nothing to do with time; rather it is derived from the Czech equivalent of “minute” meaning “tiny”. At one time there was a tobacco shop in the building where one could buy very finely minced tobacco, and that was the origin of the name. I much prefer an older name, “House of the White Lion”, alluding to the sculpture of a lion on the left corner of the house.
The White Lion underwent a development history similar to the buildings previously described. It was originally built in Late Gothic style in the early 15th century, remodeled in Renaissance style after 1564, and again in the Baroque period; but it is still considered a prime example of Bohemian Renaissance bourgeois architecture. In the citywide redevelopment scheme of the early 1900s, the White Lion and its neighbors were scheduled for demolition. At that time nobody knew or cared that between 1889 and 1896 the future writer Franz Kafka had lived there on the second floor with his parents. The White Lion was only saved when Renaissance sgraffiti (layered plaster engravings, similar to what we had seen on the Pilsen Town Hall) were discovered in the house next to the White Lion. The sgraffiti in the White Lion itself were only uncovered in 1919, when it was undergoing repairs. They were then restored. Some of the sgraffiti had been created sometime in the late 16th century and others in the early 17th. They depict a variety of subjects: busts of several Habsburg rulers such as Philip II of Spain and Holy Roman Emperors Maximilian II and Rudolf II; biblical scenes and scenes from Greek mythology; and even a bust of the Turkish Sultan Selim II (r. 1566-1574), known as Selim the Blond or Selim the Drunk. Selim was probably added because he signed a peace treaty with Maximilian II in 1568, though it was short-lived. Today there is an Italian restaurant, Al Minuto, on the ground floor.
In 1896 the City of Prague purchased the House of the White Lion/Minute House and annexed it along with other buildings to the Old Town Hall block.
The Old Town House itself had a similar beginning. In 1338 the Prague city councillors bought a mansion on the Old Town Square, then known as Market Square, and adapted it for their purposes. Then they bought the next house to the west and began the construction of a square tower, which was completed in 1364. Thus established, the pattern continued into modern times, culminating with the annexation of the Minute House group in 1896. The Old Town Hall is unusual as a public building, having been assembled from a number of smaller houses as well as a few newly constructed wings.
At the end of World War II, on May 7, 1945, as the Soviet and American armies were approaching Prague, the Czech resistance rose in revolt against the occupying German forces and began a battle to liberate the city. Fighting was savage and resulted in widespread damage to the city’s monuments and public buildings. It did not end until the arrival of the Soviet Red Army on May 9. (The American army was ordered not to go to the aid of the Czechs, which rather soured Czech public opinion on the Western powers after World War II and helped pave the way for the Communist takeover of 1948.) The leadership of the resistance used the basement of the Old Town Hall as a command center, and the Nazis bombarded it and set it on fire in retaliation. The east and north wings, added during the 19th century, were destroyed, and the tower and the Town Hall chapel were badly damaged. The tower and chapel have since been restored, but not the eastern and northern wings.
Since I’m an amateur astronomer, my favorite feature of the Old Town Hall, and indeed of the entire city, is naturally the Astronomical Clock (Pražský orloj), located on the south side of the tower. This is an amazing device, considering the state of science and technology when it was built – in the late medieval period, around 1410. It is the third oldest astronomical clock in the world and the oldest still in operation. It was constructed by a clockmaker named Mikuláš of Kadaň (1350-1419), who based his work on the suggestions and calculations of a Charles University professor of mathematics, Jan Šindel (ca. 1370 – ca. 1455). Šindel was a Catholic priest, and he succeeded Jan Hus as rector of Charles University in 1410. He initially supported Hus, but then returned to the Catholic fold, having an aversion to religious disputes and a passion for science. He was also a medical doctor, and later became personal physician to Emperor Sigismund.
Actually, however, the 1410 version of the clock was only the first incarnation. Only later in the 15th century, around 1490, was the calendar dial added, along with a set of gothic sculptures. Over the centuries, the clock broke down and was repaired many times, and sometimes in connection with the repairs new features were added. In the 17th century various wooden statues were installed, and after a major repair in 1787-1791 figures of the Apostles were emplaced. After another repair in 1865–1866 the golden figure of a crowing rooster was added.
Along with the rest of the Old Town Hall, the astronomical clock was severely damaged in the May 7 uprising at the end of World War II. The clock was repaired and resumed operation in 1948, but complete restoration of the associated sculpture and other artwork had to await a later time. In recent years the clock has undergone several renovations, the latest in 2018, in which the missing artwork was replaced and an electric clock drive that had been installed in 1948 was replaced by an original mechanism from 1860.
The 2018 restoration became the subject of a scandal when the Czech Ministry of Culture began receiving complaints that the restored artwork included significant changes in detail and spirit from the originals. A local heritage group found that in reproducing paintings done in 1866 by Josef Mánes, the restorer, Stanislav Jirčík, had, among other transgressions, replaced some of the original figures with likenesses of his friends and acquaintances. The Prague City Council began discussions about commissioning replacements for the offending paintings, but as far as I know a final resolution to the controversy has not been reached.
