When I came to the capital city of Prague for work more than twenty-five years ago, I thought that I would never get to know it properly. What I did know was that I would fall in love with Prague as a city of our culture, and I did. When someone wants to put down roots somewhere, they have to start to really like that place. Start learning to recognize the streets, the important places, make real friends, and also enjoy the atmosphere the place offers. Well, when I became friends with historian Jan Nepomuk Assmann, PhD, a long-time curator of the Museum of the Capital of Prague in Florence, it was clear that I might know Prague closer than real Praguers. Dr. Assmann knew a lot of interesting things about Prague. And I'll take the liberty of sharing a few.
Poison Hut
I won't show you the real Jed's hut in my photo, because that famous restaurant, or rather pub, or pajzl, as it used to be called, no longer exists. But let's go back in history a bit. From the thirteenth century the poison hut stood on the Větrov hill, in today's Apolinářská Street No. 446, above the local church. Already in the fourteenth century it was a place of frequent assaults and murders. The last owner of the Poison Hut was prof. Antonín Heveroch (1869-1927), who wanted to expand the nearby insane asylum or build a private sanatorium after the building was demolished, but died shortly afterwards. The tavern (a low house with a mansard roof covered with shingles) was demolished in 1933. It was probably the pub with the longest continuous existence in the Czech Republic. It was replaced by a functionalist tenement house designed by the architect Josef Kalous. The house stands between the Church of St. Apolinář and a plaza with a stone column with a statue of St. Vojtěch from 1677 at the intersection of Apolinářská and Viničná streets.
The name "Poison Hut" is now used, for example, by a pub in Vodičkova Street or in Hlubočepy. It is said that the pub was sometimes visited in disguise by the Czech king Václav IV. He is said to have recognised the two guests at the Na Vinici pub as assassins who had once tried to poison him in Vienna. The executioner who accompanied him threw poison into their wine and they both died on the spot. This is said to be where the Poison Hut got its name. And here's another interesting fact, unusual for us today. One of the owners is said to have tied spoons to chains and, to prevent anyone stealing the plates, had holes punched in the tables in which the food was served. When the guest finished eating, the innkeeper would wipe the spoon and the hole with a cloth and it would be ready for the next person. Ugh, maybe that's where the name comes from after all.
Palace Hotel Platýz and the story of the owl
On Národní třída there is a very large palace called "Platýz" (the original owner was Friedrich of Burgundy), which passed to the Prague businessman Jan Bradaty of Stříbro in 1405. The palace was then purchased in 1586 by the imperial councillor and secretary of Rudolf II, Jan Platais (Platejs) of Plattenstein, whose name the palace bears to this day. He had the facade rebuilt in Renaissance style and added a loggia on the first floor of the courtyard, small parts of which are still visible today. In 1637 the palace was acquired by Count Jan of Sternberg. The Sternbergs initiated the Baroque alterations and the passage through the courtyard between the Coal Market and Národní třída also dates from this period. The palace experienced its busiest period from 1715, when Jan Leopold Paar acquired it by dowry after his marriage to Maria Theresa of Sternberg. A famous fencing school, a post office, balls and concerts were held here. The bust of Jan Leopold Paar was placed on the staircase of the front wing to the National Avenue. In 1813, František Daubek, a knight, bought Platýz and had the palace rebuilt as a tenement and hotel. It is one of the oldest and largest in Prague. During the reconstruction, according to the architect Jindřich Hausknecht, a valuable Empire façade was built, which changed the orientation of the existing main northern portal of the palace from the Coal Market to the south to the National Avenue.
Well, here's the odd thing. If you stand in front of the main entrance to the courtyard, there is a tiny bronze owl on a sort of perch to the left. This owl was very functional and was like a traffic light. When a visitor came to this hotel house at night to check in, there was no point in waking up the servants and the whole house to be told that the hotel palace was fully occupied. To prevent this from happening, the servants would put the owl upside down and if the rooms were vacant, the owl would be raised. Until recently, the owl on the front of the palace was original, but as it was made of bronze, it was stolen. Fortunately, the police, with a lot of help from the curators of the Prague City Museum, discovered it and it was placed in a depository - the current owl is now a replica.
Lantern full of Nazis and collaborators
During one walk with Dr. Assman we decided to take a shortcut through the centre of Prague through the Lucerna passage. Suddenly the doctor winked at me and said he would show me an interesting thing. Right in the center of the arcade, above the staircase, is a kind of bridge that served as outdoor seating for the crowded Lucerna café. The café is a sort of lobby for the entrance to the cinema. There are various receptions here, and it was no different during the Second World War. But then the Lucerna served exclusively German SS officers, and their collaborators, the collaborators. They also gave themselves various rewards and decorations in the cinema hall, and afterwards, fortified with alcohol, they carved their monogram, the date when they received the decoration and a swastika into the rare opulent red marble, so that it would be known that and when these SS officers received the decoration. The odd thing was that the years engraved were in the range 1939 to 1945, meaning they were there throughout the war. This is generally known, but few people know the details. I immediately started photographing these engraved swastikas with dates and monograms. Suddenly a security man came running up to us and firmly told us to stop taking pictures and leave. At the last minute, I snapped a shot so that it was clear that it was indeed from Lucerna. And less than two months later, I walked through there again with my camera to get better shots, but there was nothing! The owners of the Lucerne had these symbols, which had been there for almost seventy years, removed by grinding. And so I have two photos of the polished truth about the Lucerne during World War II! Generally speaking, the Lucerne passage is associated with the World War in a negative way, as a very sad story. Well, history has a different face.
Allegories of Erotic Statues in Prague Architecture
One peculiarity, according to Dr. J. N. Assmann, is that our beloved Prague has always tended to emulate other European cities. For example, the Petřín Tower is a smaller copy of the Eiffel Tower in Paris, the imitation of the magnificent Statue of Liberty is on the building of our Czech National Bank in Příkopy, and so I could go on. It also happens that the architecture of our capital city of Prague has the most erotic allegorical sculptures of all Europe, even Rome itself is said not to have as many erotic sculptures as our Prague. The Town Hall itself, on Marian Square, has several male and female nude figures in its facade. And when we are in Marian Square and turn to the left from the front of the town hall, we are faced with the library, where there are six allegorical figures representing science, theatre and more.
On the corner of Jungmannova Street and Národní Avenue we have the Palace dating from 1923-1924, which was built in the style of rondocubism by the Italian insurance company Riunione Adriatica di Sicurtà according to the design of arch. Josef Zasch, in collaboration with architect Pavel Janák. The Adria passage runs through the palace from Jungmannova Street to Národní třída. Otto Gutfreund, Jan Štursa, František Anýž, Karel Dvořák and Bohumil Kafka participated in the sculptural decoration of the palace. And in Spálená Street we also have very nice allegorical sculptures of agriculture, engineering, metallurgy and winemaking on the building of the current Komerční banka.
A crank for the emperor lord
At Masaryk Station there is an inconspicuous room on the first platform called the "Emperor's Lounge". It was the Emperor Franz Joseph I who was to inaugurate the Masaryk Station, so everything was prepared to make the Emperor happy and impressed. Therefore, a special luxury handle was made to be used by the Emperor himself to open this lounge, which was to be his first contact on Czech territory, right after getting off the train. But the Emperor's train from Vienna was late and there was no time for tea or refreshments. So the Emperor never touched the polished handle, because he had to fulfill his program immediately and touched some other handle somewhere else. By the way, you can still see that handle for the emperor at Masaryk Station on Platform 1, where the lounge is located.
I could go on and on like this, not only about sculptures in architecture, but also about small pieces of our beautiful and beloved Prague. So again next time.
Jan Vojtěch
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