Prague – serie

This new edition celebrates the stunning examples of art nouveau art and architecture on display in Prague. Since the collapse of the Iron Curtain in 1989, Prague has become one of Europe’s—and the world’s—most popular tourist destinations. As in London, Paris, and Rome, visitors flock to the gorgeous buildings and monuments that grace the streets of Prague, entranced by structures ranging from Gothic and baroque to cubist and neoclassical. And while hundreds of thousands stroll over Charles Bridge and gaze up at St. Vitus Cathedral each year, far fewer venture away from the crowds to seek out the countless gems of art nouveau peppered throughout Prague.With Art Nouveau Prague, Petr Wittlich—one of Europe’s leading experts on nineteenth- and twentieth-century architecture—tours those monuments and buildings of Prague that are most representative of the art nouveau movement while offering insightful commentary on each. Along the way, Wittlich visits such sites as the Municipal House, the Wilson Railway Station, the Grand Hotel Europa, and works by sculptors František Bílek, Ladislav Šaloun, and Stanislav Sucharda.An introductory essay by Wittlich emphasizing the role of art nouveau within contemporary currents of modern European art accompanies more than one hundred color illustrations of some of the most stunning examples of art nouveau architecture and decoration in existence, and a detailed bibliography provides additional reading for each of the sites displayed in the book. Art Nouveau Prague is a must-have for those traveling to Prague for the first time or for anyone who appreciates or wants to learn more about art nouveau style.

Prague in the Reign of Rudolph II takes readers back to the days of the Habsburg Emperor Rudolph II (1576-1611) when Prague became the metropolis of the Holy Roman Empire, and when the imperial court was a much sought-after milieu for scholars and artists, as well as magicians and adventurers. As the author notes, almost anyone of importance from inside-and even outside-the empire had to spend some time in Prague if they wanted to make their name. Internationally renowned expert on Rudolphine art Eliska Fucikova provides the reader with an engaging and informative stroll through Rudolphine Prague, which to this day remains full of mystery and legend, and includes a look at the famous imperial collection housed within Prague Castle. Her lively and authoritative account is accompanied by over a hundred color plates of buildings and historic monuments dating from the late Renaissance, together with maps and other graphic documentation, an index of locations with a map of Rudolphine monuments, and an overview of prominent figures.A follow-up to Karolinum's earlier Art-Nouveau Prague, and the first title in their new Prague series, Prague in the Reign of Rudolph II is sure to be prized by art lovers and adventurers alike.

The design of Prague's gardens and parks especially the green spaces of its palaces, castles, and monastery complexes, both private and public is inseparable from the millennium-long efflorescence of this exquisite Czech metropolis. Lushly illustrated with nearly one hundred and fifty original color photographs and archival images, Prague: Parks and Gardens not only shares the latest findings on these gardens' historical foundation and stylistic transformations, but also takes us through the garden gates into individual gardens and parks both Prague's most visited and its undiscovered green gems. Meandering past flower-framed baroque statues to renaissance loggias, romantic pavilions, elegant stairways, and bubbling fountains, the book explores Prague's gardens and parks by locality, offering novel insight into the city's different sections that will delight all educated travelers and lovers of Prague. For gardeners, descriptions of some historical gardens also include explanations of their specific spatial relations, connecting them to the larger story of European urban garden design.Complemented with a glossary of terms and an index of important figures and locations, this beautiful celebration of Prague's remarkable living botanical art, both past and present, sheds new light on the leafy corners of this adored European capital.

At the end of the fifteenth century, when the Jagiellons and first Habsburg rulers sat on Prague’s throne, the character of the city’s municipalities began to transition from medieval to Renaissance. In Renaissance Prague, historian Eliška Fučíková paints a vivid picture of the Bohemian capital during this time of sweeping change.As Fučíková reveals, this period saw the evolution of new architectural motifs across the city. In particular, there was a distinct transformation of Prague Castle, including the construction of well-known features such as the Ball Game Hall and Queen Anne’s Summer Palace. Featuring a concise historical overview and a guide to prominent figures of the time, as well as a variety of illustrations—from artwork to archival images, contemporary photographs, and maps—Fučíková’s book is a beautiful, enlightening tour through the Renaissance metropolis of the Bohemian Kingdom.

Prague has been a center of university education for centuries, and in this book, Josef Petráň and Lydia Petráňová guide us through the history and architecture of Prague’s diverse universities, enlightening us about academic life and the integral role played by the universities in the social and cultural life of the Czech capital city.Prague’s rise as the ultimate university town began on April 7, 1348, when Charles IV, King of Bohemia and Holy Roman Emperor, founded the first institution of higher education north of the Alps and east of the Rhine. During the second half of the sixteenth century, Charles University faced competition with the opening of the Jesuit Academy at Klementinum—until the two institutions merged in 1654. In 1718 the world’s first civil engineering school, which later became Czech Technical University, opened. At the very end of the nineteenth century, the foundations of the Academy of Fine Arts were laid in Prague, and later it was supplemented by the University of Decorative Arts. In the decades following World War II a growth of interest in higher education raised the number of universities in Prague to a total of nine.Prague: University Town explores all of them. Illustrated in color throughout with images that span from the gothic arches of Charles University to the technicist and brutalist structures of the Czech Technical University, this book is both a celebration of universities’ architectural beauty and a thorough history of higher education in the home of Central Europe’s oldest university.