Prague Lucerna Passage – Cultural Gem The first time I came through the covered Lucerna Passage (it sounds like “lootserna”) was the summer of 1996 about a week after arriving in the country. I think we were trying to find an American pub but we had no map, no smartphones, we didn’t speak Czech and … Read More
10 Things You Did Not Know About The Prague Marian Column Having written about it and described the reasoning for the column, I realised that I was aware of things that a fraction of the residents of the city would know, let alone a visitor. So as well as describing some of the destruction and … Read More
Prague Marian Column If you did my Old Town Walking Tour up to February 2020 then you’ll know that in the early part of the tour I show the Prague Meridian line on the Old Town Square and then say, and I quote “before I tell you about the meridian I have to tell you … Read More
The Prague Book Tunnel Visiting the main city library normally doesn’t make anybody’s top ten list of things to do in Prague. That’s a shame because you will have missed out on seeing a quite bizarre yet striking piece of architectural art. It’s acquired the name of the Prague Book Tunnel but read on to … Read More
The House of the Suicide Before you read this post you’ll need to read Jan Palach, Icon. There are three parts to the project by American Architect and Sculptor John Hejduk, two houses and a poem. It’s full title is often reported as “The House of the Suicide and the House of the Mother of … Read More
Gothic Prague Architecture – The Old Lady of Architecture Humanity has always sought out ways to improve and the Gothic Prague period was no exception. It took basic rules of Romanesque design and applied the latest building techniques. This resulted in construction of some of the most iconic buildings still visible in Prague and includes … Read More
An Easy Guide to Prague Architecture – An Education in Style When you are deciding on a visit to Prague there will be terms like “beautiful” and “stunning”. So what actually makes it beautiful and stunning. Well in some shape or form it’s the architecture. In this series of posts I’m going to try and … Read More
Romanesque Prague Architecture (or Norman) If you are from England then you can see examples of Romanesque architecture in most major cities. It’s just that we don’t call it Romanesque, we call it “Norman” so you are in the period roughly between 800 and 1150. Signatures of Romanesque Prague architecture (which can also be called … Read More
Prague Art Nouveau – A New Kind of Art Prague has become synonymous with Art Nouveau even though in my experience people, at first glance, get Secessionist and Art Nouveau mixed up. In general, on the external side you can spot Prague Art Nouveau by looking for organic decorative features. Trees, flowers, branches/vines and fruit … Read More
Secessionist Prague Architecture What you now have to realize is that the last thousand years of design and architecture has been dominated either by Romanesque, Gothic, Renaissance or Baroque, each holding for no less than 200 years apiece. That’s a lot of history and religion. Note that I now run a Prague Architecture Tour for … Read More