The Prague Vitruvius

2012 is the seventieth anniversary of one of the most daring and courageous acts undertaken against the Nazi regime. Operation Anthropoid was a mission carried out by Czechoslovak parachutists trained by the British SOE (Special Operations Executive) between December 1941 and May 1942. Its successful objective was the assassination of Reinhard Heydrich, Reichsprotektor of Bohemia and Moravia.

Although this act of resistance remains controversial because it led indirectly to the appalling massacre at Lidice, there is little doubt that the death of 'The Butcher of Prague' represented a significant blow to Hitler's plans for the forced repatriation or extermination of the Slavs.

The monument, installed in 2009 near the point where Heydrich's car was attacked, was designed by sculptors David Moješčík and Michal Šmeral in partnership with architects Miroslava Tůmová and Jiří Gulbis. The triangular sheet-metal plinth is intended to reflect the design of the Czech flag, and its rusted appearance to indicate the vulnerability of the Czech state. The posture of the three resistance fighters, with arms oustretched, was chosen deliberately to mirror that of Leonardo da Vinci's 'Vitruvian Man': it's a reference to the name 'Anthropoid' - from the Greek word for 'mankind'.

Known principally for his many sacred buildings, including the cathedral of Saint Nicholas and that of Saints Cyril and Methodius, the prolific Prague architect Kilián Ignác Dientzenhofer was also responsible for a number of magnificent secular works, among them the Kinský Palace in the Old Town Square and the Invalidovna complex in Karlín.

From 1715 to 1720 he also worked on two smaller-scale projects: a baroque villa built for his own family in Smichov, and this beautiful summer palace with its stunning triple-axis facade, commissioned by Count Jan Václav Michna of Vacinov.

In 1826 the villa was taken over by the proprietors of the garden restaurant 'Amerika' - hence its present name - and since 1932 it has housed the Antonín Dvořák Museum. The collection (open every day except Monday) comprises manuscripts, correspondence and the personal effects of one of the world's greatest composers.

The corner of Na Zderaze and Resslova streets has always been a holy place. Tradition has it that Methodius himself (who with his brother Cyril set out to popularize Christianity in the Slavic lands) dedicated a chapel here. Certainly a later church of SS Peter and Paul stood on this spot from the 12th to the 15th centuries.

The present building, originally dedicated to Saint Charles Borromeo, was begun in 1730 by Pavel Ignác Bayer, and completed between 1733 and 1740 by Kristian Spannbruker and Kilián Ignác Dientzenhofer. Shortly afterwards it was one of the many churches to be closed down under the reforms of Emperor Joseph II, who sought a more religiously tolerant Europe less in thrall to Rome. When it was reconsecrated in 1933, this fine baroque building became the leased property of the Greek Orthodox Church, which still has use of it today.

In 1942,  the bishop and other parish priests attempted to conceal the Czechoslovak parachutists who had taken refuge in the crypt following their successful mission to assassinate Hitler's deputy in Bohemia, SS-Obergruppenführer Reinhard Heydrich. The tragic outcome of those events is recorded on the memorial plaque, flanked by a soldier in the uniform of the British Parachute Regiment and a Greek Orthodox priest.


"In this Orthodox church of SS Cyril and Methodius there died for our freedom on 18 June 1942 the Avengers of our Nation, from the Czechoslovak Foreign Legion:

Staff Cpt. Adolf Opálka
Cpt. Jozef Gabčík
Cpt. Jan Kubiš
Cpt. Josef Valčík
Lt. Josef Bublík
Lt. Jan Hrubý
Lt. Jaroslav Švarc

Bishop Gorazd, Spiritual Fr. [Vaclav] Čikl, [curate] Dr [Vladimir] Petřek, community leader [Jan] Sonnevend, and other patriotic Czechs who hid them, were executed. In Everlasting Memory.'

Underneath the plaque is the horrific signature of the gun battle of that day.

The southern flank of Prague's Petřín Hill is dominated by an extensive park created in the popular 'English' style for the sixth Prince Kinský between 1827 and 1831.

Near the summit of the wooded hill is a curious anomaly: a 17th-century orthodox church transferred in its entirety from the Carpathian village of Velyki Lučky (Великі Лучки in today's Ukraine). The building has a bizarre history, having been dismantled and rebuilt twice: once in 1793 when it was sold to a wealthier neighbouring village; and again in 1929 when the region, then part of Czechoslovakia, sold it to Prague's National Museum as an example of typical vernacular architecture.

The church combines rustic baroque with the 'Boiko' style still found in numerous other triple-spired wooden churches in the region; very similar examples from the Slovakian villages of Inovce and Mirol'a are now under the protection of UNESCO.

This monumental bronze of the religious reformer Master Jan Hus - flanked by victorious troops of the 15th century Hussite wars but also by the exiled protestants of the 17th century Thirty Years' War - was begun by the sculptor Ladislav Šaloun in 1903. Twelve years later, on 6 July 1915, it was unveiled in Prague's Old Town Square to commemorate the 500th anniversary of Hus's martyrdom in Konstanz.

From its inception, Šaloun's statue excited controversy. His struggle to produce a monument that would satisfy all parties provides a fascinating glimpse into the continuing claims of religious and political factions in Bohemia. Whether Hus should be presented as downcast or visionary, isolated or part of a historical group, even tall or short (as the historical Hus apparently was) meant that Šaloun was forced to rework his original design numerous times. The final solution has Hus as the centre of a symbolic group, rising out of a sea of troubled history from a vast horizontal pedestal designed to counterbalance the vertical baroque column to the Virgin Mary which stood nearby until the defeat of the Austrian empire in 1918.

Visitors to the Old Town Square will once more be able to judge this effect for themselves when the restored Marian column is replaced in late 2012.

Since the nineteenth century, various solutions had been proposed for a bridge to link central Prague with the southern suburb of Pankrác, spanning the third-of-a-mile-wide Botič valley. Architects Stanislav Bechyně and Bohumír Kozák produced an elegant triple arch design in 1919, and in the years that followed, both Jan Koteřa and Josef Havlíček independently came up with ingenious designs incorporating housing into the bridge structure.

However it was the plan of Stanislav Hubička which prevailed, and between 1967 and 1973, four reinforced concrete pillars arose, towering 150 feet above the streets of Nusle. In total, seventeen apartment blocks were cleared to make way for the new construction. The bridge was designed from the start to carry not only the six-lane 'Magistrála' highway, but also, in a tubular section suspended below the carriageway, the southern line of the Prague Metro between I.P Pavlova and Vyšehrad stations.

In an extraordinary test of the load-bearing capacity of the new bridge (originally named after Czechoslovakia's first communist president Klement Gottwald), sixty-six Russian-built tanks were driven up and down the highway 600 times. In the immediate aftermath of the 1968 Soviet invasion, it's easy to imagine how such an experiment would have been eyed with suspicion and disdain.

Two separate mediaeval houses stood here at the lower end of Wenceslas Square until the year 1572, when the Betengl (or Wettengl) family had them joined together and substantially enlarged. In 1621, the property was confiscated from Kryštof Wettengl the Younger, who had been supplying arms to the Czech Estates during the Battle of the White Mountain. The house was later returned to his brother John on condition that he swore loyalty to the victorious Emperor Ferdinand II.

In 1789 the builder Zachariáš Fiegerth was commissioned to re-face the house in baroque style for a beeswax-chandler named Nicholas Fischer. From this date comes the stucco sign, which earned the house its nickname 'Velký úl' (the Great Beehive) or 'U zlatého úlu' (The Golden Beehive). Today the building is the home of the Hotel Prague Inn.