Prague [antikvár]

ARCHITECTURAL PRAGUE BY ZDENEK WIRTH X ew of the cities of Europe have been endowed with as fine a site as Prague. The soil on which the historic city stands is pliable, changes at every turn; and the large natural outlines it has bestowed upon the town are the basis of its monumentality. The several hills which rise transversely above the river Vltava provide a scaffolding which the river's broad ribbon knits together. The stream is transformed into a lake within the city, which mirrors the dominating architectural features: the Little Quarter (Mala Strana) and Castle Hill (Hradcany). Upon this site the development of a thousand years has produced an architectural achievement of great sculptural force, unique in framatic outline and charming in detail; a complex architectural synthesis in which history and art meet harmoniously and which has accorded a place to all trends of European architecture from the 10th to the 20th centuries. To this day, the groundplan of Prague as well as the siting of the architectural highlights hold the drama of the city's evolution. The story is on a vast scale and of a high order of artistic achievement. At first only a huddle of scattered medieval settlements, Prague has been fused in the course of the centuries into a large urban unit; in the making of this variegated architectural pattern all the styles of our age have played their part. The gradual assumption of definite architectural outhne starts wth the city's entry into history in the 10th century. The basic components of the urban organism were the two focal points, the Knights' Castles of Hradcany and Vy^ehrad, and the "suburbs" nestling beneath them on both banks of the river, the market centre at Tyn, and the foreign traders' colonies. The first monumental structures, contrasting with the artistically insignificant architecture of the common population at the various settlements, were the stone edifices of castles and churches, Judith Bridge, and the steepled and spired domestic buildings of the patrician burghers. This Romanesque urban nucleus still conformed to the primitive, tangled street pattern, with few and sparsely built-up areas. A compact urban pattern did not emerge until the first half of the 13th century.