The National Museum, a monumental backdrop to modern Czech history
08-09-2010 13:08 | Christian Falvey | Český rozhlas
No visitor to Prague can fail to admire the beautiful National Museum, the dominant feature atop the long boulevard of Wenceslas Square. It is home to millions of items of natural and social history. However, today’s edition of Spotlight focuses not on the exhibitions inside, but on the building of the National Museum itself, one of the instantly recognisable landmarks of the Czech Republic.
Art historian Lubomír Sršeň has the most excellent appearance of a museum employee. The elegant 60-year-old has an air of being right at home in the marble foyer of the National Museum where we met, and well he should – as one of the building’s longest serving employees he has been caring for its artworks for nearly a third of its history. Since he was asked to prepare an exhibition for the building’s 100 year anniversary in 1991, he has also become the authority on its history, and so I came to him with my many questions about the monument, beginning with what was here before it.
“The New Town district of Prague ended at this point, there were city walls in this area, and right where the museum is now was the New Horse Gate, which was built in the 19th century on the site of an older gate. If we face Wenceslas Square, which used to be a horse market, then behind us fields and meadows and orchards began and the city ended. And because they had begun taking down the city walls in the late 19th century and the entry gates as well, new lots were available where the Main Train Station and other public buildings like the National Museum were built.”
The National Museum was conceived with an eye towards grandeur. It entirely closes the top of the square where it provides a defining view of Prague. It is one of the largest buildings in Prague – 100 metres wide and almost 70 metres in height, making it taller than the small Eiffel tower on Petřín Hill.
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