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From the Municipal House to the National Museum
Total distance: 1.1 km, Updated: 9 months ago
Náměstí Republiky (Republic Square) grew up by the walls of the Old Town, next to the old road leading from Celetná Street through the Powder Tower into Hybernská Street and further in the direction of Kutná Hora and into eastern Bohemia. From the historical buildings only the Prašná brána (Powder Tower), about which we wrote in the second walk through the Old Town, and two churches remain here. On the corner of Na Poříčí Street stands the tiny Capuchine Church of St. Josef, dating from the middle of the 17th century and retaining the typically simple appearance of Capuchine buildings. The statue of St. Francis of Assisi by František Preiss in 1708, placed in the wall in front of the church, stood originally on Charles Bridge. In the church yard is a statue of the Apostle St. Jude Thadeus, the patron saint of desperate people. The interior of the church is also unusually modest, apart from two pictures by Karel Škréta. In the original monastery building, which became a barracks in 1795, Josef Kajetán Tyl, composed in 1834 the text of the Czech national anthem (“Where is my Home?”). In 1860 it was replaced by a new building in neo-romanesque style (No.1079/1).
On the corner of Hybernská Street is the house U Hybernů(No.1037/3), adapted from the Franciscan Church of Our Lady. Originally there was here the gothic church of St. Ambrosius founded by Charles IV to commemorate his coronation with an iron Lombardy crown in Milan. It was administered by the Milanese benedictines who adhered to a strange, Ambrosian liturgy. In 1630 Irish Franciscans came to the run down monastery and from the Latin name for their country - Hibernia - the monastery became known colloquially as “U Hybernů”. The friars built the Church of the Immaculate Conception of the Virgin Mary, whose facade and interior were transfomed at the beginning of the 19th century into the neo-classical style we see today.
It is said that the Irish monks brought potatoes to Bohemia and began their use here. In reality however the potatoes were here already but were considered more as a speciality, mentioned in cookery books alongside asparagus and other delicacies.
Opposite the Hybernian Monastery, next to the Powder Tower, is the art nouveau building of the Obecní Dům (Municipal House) [No.1090/5], built on the site of the mediaeval Royal Court, which we mentioned in the second walk through the Old Town. The Municipal House was built by the Prague municipality between 1906-1912, designed by Altonín Balšánek and Osvald Polívka. The facade is decorated with a mosaic by Karel Špilar “Homage to Prague” and a statue by Ladislav Šaloun “the subjugation and resurrection of the nation”. Many prominent Czech artists from the beginning of the 20th century, including Alfons Mucha, Max Švabinský, Jan Preisler, František Ženíšek, Mikoláš Aleš, Josef Václav Myslbek, Josef Mařatka, participated in the decoration of the six halls and state rooms. The whole Municipal House complex is the epitome of the Czech art nouveau style.
On the site of the Kotva Department Store (No.656/8) stood the romanesque Church of St. Benedict, next to which in 1233 a chapter of the Order of German Knights settled. During the Hussite era the church and the monastery became redundant. From 1676 the Premonstratension College of St. Norbert was here with a church which was pulled down in 1792. From 1793 the Institute for Noble Women was housed in the College. The whole complex was demolished in 1928.
We enter Na Příkopě Street, the well known business and banking centre of Prague. The name of the street recalls the moat that was here as part of the Old Town fortifications. After the foundation of the New Town, it was to have been filled in but this did not happen. It was used successfully for the craft workshops of goldsmiths and glass makers.
The moat was also a source of problems. Already in 1538 a commission found “much uncleanliness, which is a great disgrace and to the detriment of the place”. It is not surprising, as all the toilet waste from the Old Town houses standing above the moat, was directed into it, and this continued until 1660. In hollows beside the moat were apparently hideaways for small time thieves and robbers and the street therefore was not very safe. Many disagreements were caused by the narrow road directly above the relatively deep moat. For instance in 1751, nearby residents lodged a complaint about the bad condition of the street, because the carriage of Count Wratislav tumbled into the 6 metre deep moat when he was leaving his house, as also did Count špork with a carriage, Count černín with a team of six horses and Count Paradis. Whether the moat had a special prejudice against Counts is not known but it is probable that many even without blue blood also ended up in it. Therefore in 1760 the district finally had the moat filled in and in the centre of the widened street was planted an alley of trees. This became a popular promenade and the street was called V alejích (In the alleys).
On the site of the bank (No.860-864/24, 26, 28), stood several buildings which included two hotels. Closer to the crossroads with Hybernská Street was the hotel U modré hvězdy (At the Blue Star), where Feodor Michaelovich Dostoevsky, Hector Berlioz and Frederick Chopin stayed.In the hotel U černého koně (At the Black Horse), Niccolo Paganini, Richard Wagner and Edvard Grieg all stayed. (Let us note that in the nearby Hybernská Street in the hotel Saský dvůr (the Saxon Court)/ No.997/2/ Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky, Gustave Mahler, Thomas Alva Edison and Karel May stayed.)
The next building is the Slovanský dům (Slavonic House), formerly the German Casino and even before that the Vernier Palace (No.859/22). The palace garden survives as the oldest New Town garden. It is perhaps the only place in the centre of the New Town, which was never built over.
From Příkopy, Nekázanka (Unordered) Street turns to the left. According to a well known story, it is called this because Charles IV did not order it to be built but it sprang up naturally. In reality however the name indicates that it meant a dirty and “infamous” street - therefore neukázněná (unruly).
On the left stands the Church of the Holy Cross, built in neo-classical style between 1819-1824 next to the monastery and school of the educational Order of Piarists (No.856/16). On the site of the Obchodní Bank (No.854/14) used to be the hotel At the Three Linden Trees, where Giovanni Casanova stayed several times. Later, it was rebuilt into an apartment house and was where the writer, Božena Němcová, died on 21 January 1862.
The most interesting surviving building in the street is the Sylva-Taroucca Palace (No.852/10) with the well known coffee house Savarin. This charming building was designed by Kilián Ignác Dientzenhofer between 1743-1751 and modified around 1854.
Na Příkopě Street finishes at Václavské náměstí (Wenceslas Square). In the hall of the Můstek metro station, built at the lower end of the square, part of the můstek (little bridge which led in the past across the moat to the Old Town) is preserved. For a moment we leave the square and via the passage in the building of the Astra coffee house (No.773/4), we enter Jungmannovo Square. On the left behind the passage way stands a stone street light, a small example of cubist style. Behind it we see a gothic portal leading to the former cemetery of the Church of Our Lady of the Snows. The tympanum of the portal depicts the coronation of the Virgin Mary at the top and the Tree of Life, with the figures of Charles IV and his wife Blanche at the sides. It is an important work of sculpture from around 1346. Next is the well known tavern U pinkasů (No.755/16), decorated on the facade with a statue of St. Lawrence, holding the griddle on which he was burnt. Behind the tavern we walk through a side entrance into the courtyard and enter the Church of Panny Marie Sněžné (Our Lady of the Snows).
This church is the tallest church building in Prague. Its ceiling is over 33 metres high, that is a few centimetres more than the Cathedral of St. Vítus. It was founded by Charles IV in 1347 in connection with his coronation as Czech King and it belonged to the Order of the Carmelites. (Its patron saint according to legend was the Virgin Mary who caused snow to fall in Rome in the middle of summer on the Esquilinus Hill where she wished to have her church built). The Prague church was to be over 100 metres long but the Hussite Wars prematurely ended its construction. The main nave was to have been on the site of today's courtyard and the towers were to have stood in the Square beyond the Jungmann Monument (a bronze statue after the model by Ludvík Šimek, unveiled in 1878). Between 1419-1422 the priest Jan Želivský was active in the church as a preacher. On 30 July 1419, he led a procession from here to the New Town Town Hall, where the first Prague defenestration happened - the beginning of the Hussite insurrection. The church and the monastery fell into disrepair until 1604 when the Franciscans acquired it and remodelled it in Renaissance style. Clinging to the south side of the church is the monastery with its garden, forming an unexpected oasis of peace amidst the hubbub of the centre of town. Unfortunately the newly built up Wenceslas Square prevents any appreciation of the height of the church whose nave can only be clearly seen from the garden.
We return to Wenceslas Square, the former Horse market, which is currently the main Prague thoroughfare, 750 metres long.
It is difficult to imagine all the changes which the square has undergone. There were times, when the houses were at most two storeys high and not particularly splendid. There used to be two fountains in the Square and in the early Baroque period opposite Jindřišská Street, a statue of St. Wenceslas by Jan Jiří Bendl was erected, which is now in Vyšehrad.In addition there was also room for two gallows and a pillory. The lower half of the Square was the more impressive paved with headstones from the dissolved Chapel of Corpus Christi at Karlovo Square. The upper part of the square was on the outskirts - where today's National Museum stands, the Gate of St. Prokopius or Horse Gate, used to be. In the 19th century the road in the upper part of the square was reinforced by “cats' heads” (cobble stones), between which grass grew, and it was not unusual in the morning to see a hare grazing which had strayed there from today's Vinohrady.
Passing by the Myslbek statue of St. Wenceslas, unveiled in 1913 we reach the monumental building of the Národní muzeum (National Museum)[No.1700/68], built in neo-Renaissance style by Josef Schulz between 1885-1890, on the site of the Horse Gate. The interior is decorated with statues and paintings by prominent Czech artists and is worth visiting for that alone. The building houses valuable collections from several academic disciplines (history, mineralogy, paleontology ...), which, together with an extensive library and collection of manuscripts, make the Museum one of the foremost cultural and scientific institutions of the republic. Here we end our walk.
What was left out:
- In Klimentská Street is the Church of St. Kliment, at its core a Gothic building with newly discovered wall paintings. Since 1850 it has been used by the Evangelical Church. In the nearby Nové mlýny Street is the New Town Water Tower, a tall renaissance building topped by a viewing gallery. Opposite the Tower in the same street is the Vávrův house (No.239/2), originally a mill and given a neo-Classical styling in 1834, with wall paintings by Josef Navrátil in the interior. This houses the Poštovní muzeum (the Postal Museum).
- In Petrská Street we can see the Church of St. Peter with two towers and a separate belltower. The church was founded before 1174 as the parish church for the Petrská community of German merchants. After many changes the last, purist renovation returned to it its mediaeval character.
- In Jindřišská Street is the Church of St. Jindřich and St. Kunhuta, also with a separate belltower. It was founded around 1350 as the parish church for the lower part of the New Town, in the village then called Chudobice. The interior of the church is decorated in Baroque style.