Wiehl House (Prague) 1896 ii
Wiehl's House is a designation for the Neo-Renaissance house on Wenceslas Square No. 792 situated on the corner of Wenceslas Square and Vodičkova Street.
"The central motif of the painting decoration consists of two cycles from the life of a burgher . In the spirit of the contemporary notion of virtues, he is depicted as a merchant , scholar and defender of his city. Mikoláš Aleš worked on the theme by painting six figures in the fields of the third floor . Below them, on the second floor, are painted significant scenes from bourgeois life, which complement the sayings in cartouches above the upper figures. The cycle of life has as its motto the inscription "Life - pilgrimage to God". The first four paintings are (from left to right) painted on the facade of Wenceslas Square and the last two (again from left to right) are painted on the facade in Vodičkova Street."
The house was built for his needs in the years 1894 - 96 according to his own project by a prominent Czech architect of the 19th century Antonín Wiehl .
The authors of the paintings on the facade are Mikoláš Aleš and Josef Fanta . The house was built on land after the demolition of the original building, which Wiehl bought in 1894.
Wiehl bequeathed the house on Wenceslas Square in his will to the Czech Academy of Sciences and Arts . [1] and according to Wiehl's wishes, since his death, it has served as the property of the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic for the needs of the Academia publishing house .
The house is registered in the Central List of Cultural Monuments of the Czech Republic . [2]
Basic information
Style :neo-renaissance
Architects: Antonín Wiehl ; author fig. paintings Mikoláš Aleš , ornamental decoration by Josef Fanta
Construction: 1894–1896
Reconstruction: reconstruction after 1945
Current owner: The Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic
Address: Wenceslas Square 792/34, Prague , Czech Republic Czechia
Street: Wenceslas Square and Vodickova
Coordinates: 50 ° 4′55.03 ″ N , 14 ° 25′33.61 ″ E
Wiehl's house is situated as a corner on the corner of Wenceslas Square and Vodičkova Street. [3]
It has four floors, 4 × 11 window axes , decorative gables and dormers on the gable roof .
On the ridge of the roof is a turret with a gallery. There is a portal on the facade to Vodičkova street. Plasters are mostly painted.
The plastic elements of the facade are made partly in stucco , partly from sandstone
In the extreme axis on the 2nd and 4th floor bay window connected by a balcony .
Business premises were designed on the ground floor, a café on the first floor, and apartments and offices on the other floors. [4]
Wiehl's house is one of the most striking Neo-Renaissance houses in Prague. [5]
The area and thematic breadth of the painting decoration is unparalleled among the houses in Prague built at the end of the 19th century.
Wiehl himself designed the artistic decoration of the facade and the themes of the paintings. [6]
It was based on its concept of the "Czech" Renaissance and determined the areas of the facade for decoration and its composition .
Wiehl used his collection of stories on historic buildings to decorate the house in the style of so-called "talking architecture".
He chose the ones he liked as bearers of " wit , humor , irony , but also wisdom and morality ." [7]
The paintings cover practically the entire facade to the square and a substantial area of the facade to Vodičkova Street .
The paintings do not only affect the shop window on the ground floor and part of the first floor.
The author of the ornamental decoration is Josef Fanta . The figural decoration was realized according to the design of Mikoláš Alš . [10]
The paintings on the house according to these designs were made by painters Láďa Novák and A. Hofbauer, assisted by František Urban and Vilém Trsek.
The painting decoration of the house is very rich. Contains ornaments , cartouches , masks , camomiles , containers , floral decor, fruit festoons , ribbons in Czech national colors. Naked figures in typical Michelangelo's poses and children with musical instruments are represented.
On the top floor of the façade to Wenceslas Square, allegories of virtues are painted between the windows, cupids, shields and symbols of Day and Night are painted in the gable in Vodičková Street, and the masks of War and Peace are painted under the crown ledge .
The central motif of the painting decoration consists of two cycles from the life of a burgher . In the spirit of the contemporary notion of virtues, he is depicted as a merchant , scholar and defender of his city. Mikoláš Aleš worked on the theme by painting six figures in the fields of the third floor . Below them, on the second floor, are painted significant scenes from bourgeois life, which complement the sayings in cartouches above the upper figures. The cycle of life has as its motto the inscription "Life - pilgrimage to God". The first four paintings are (from left to right) painted on the facade of Wenceslas Square and the last two (again from left to right) are painted on the facade in Vodičkova Street.
The judge with the child and the inscription "Baba in front, God only leads the thread" is placed above the scene of baptism
the student with the inscription "A tree grows and stands" is above a child and a teacher, equipped with a globe , a book, weapons and a horse.
Half-naked girl with an apple with the inscription "You have me - you don't care, you lose - you know" and a picture of the couple
Aleš's paintings from Vodičkova street. Citizen defender and old man with family
A burgher with the inscription "We are good - no one is wrong" and below him a businessman with bills, a helper and a boy with a boat.
On the facade of Vodičkova Street, a knight is painted with the slogan "If you don't defend, you don't ask" and a scene of the king passing a burgher to a knight.
An image of an old man in a family circle as a symbol of a full life and above it Moran with the memento "There is no root against Moraine".
The façade of Wiehl's house contains traditional Renaissance motifs in its painting decoration. From the Czech national tradition, folklore, scenes from history and Slavic mythology ( Morana ) are represented as comments on the paintings. He shows the image of human life as a contemporary ideal of an active and successful burgher. [7]
House history
Antonín Wiehl - architect, builder and patron
Wiehl has lived in the new house since 1896 and also had his office as an architect and builder . He had his extensive art collections, a library and other antiques stored in the house. In the last years of his life after completing active construction work, he devoted himself to organizing his collections and working on documents for the Commission for the Inventory of Architectural , Artistic and Historical Monuments of the Royal Capital City of Prague [11] He also prepared documents for his will , according to which the house on Wenceslas Square bequeathed. Czech Academy of Sciences and Arts (in addition to his property to establish the Institute of National Economy, which he drafted. [1] Wiehl also died in this house. His patronage was fulfilled and the house has been owned by the Czech Academy of Sciences and Arts and its legal successors: after 1918 the Czech Academy of Sciences and Arts (ČAVU) the Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences of Czechoslovakia and after 1992 the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic [12] It is currently managed by the Center for Joint Activities of the ASCR, vvi [13] Academia , which has on the ground floor and on the 1st floor rep [14] Due to its architectural value, the Wiehl House was declared a cultural monument with effect from 3 May 1958 and is entered in the Central List of Cultural Monuments of the Czech Republic with register number 39967 / 1-1138. [2] During the May Uprising of 1945, Wiehl's house was damaged by the German bombing of Wenceslas Square and repaired in the 1950s. [15] The paintings on the facades of the house were repeatedly restored. [16] The ground floor of the house was modified in connection with the construction of an underpass on Wenceslas Square in the years 1967 - 1968 , when the arcade on the ground floor in Vodičkova Street was modified, from which the house is connected to the underpass by a staircase. The original rustication of the ground floor (its continuation on the 1st floor is visible) has been replaced by polished stone tiles. Subsequently, in connection with the construction of the Můstek station of line A of the Prague metro, the house is connected to the metro station by this underpass. Wiehl's house is presented to tourists and visitors to Prague as an important tourist destination. [17] An information board is located on the ground floor of the facade of Wenceslas Square. [18] [19]
In 2016, a more extensive repair of the house took place (facades, roofs, interiors).
Wiehl's house in the context of Wiehl's neo-Renaissance
The facades of the buildings designed by Antonín Wiehl have been welcomed by the public and experts since the 1970s as a new element in the decoration of houses and in the atmosphere of Prague's streets. [20] Wiehl gradually refined his conception of the Czech Neo-Renaissance in the decoration of his houses. Wiehl's house is the tenth tenement house designed by Wiehl in Prague. [21] [22] On his designs of houses, two directions can be observed: the first direction are houses with facade decoration formed by a combination of gray masonry, sgraffito and Renaissance gables (or lunette cornices). Wiehl's house belongs to the second group, where painting and sgraffito dominate the entire facade. [23] In the project, Wiehl defined the area for sgraffito and his own decoration designs were made in cartons by the painter Mikoláš Aleš, who collaborated with Wiehl in the 1970s and 1980s on the decoration of a number of houses (eg House No. 1682 Na Poříčí , Old Town Waterworks ). The culmination of this collaboration is undoubtedly Aleš's allegories on the monumental decoration of Wiehl's house. The architect entrusted the ornamental sgraffito, which began to appear on Prague's facades in the 1970s, mainly thanks to Wiehl, to Josef Fant. [24] [25] Wiehl's colleague architect Jan Koula Wiehl's efforts were defined in 1883 in the Reports of the Association of Architects as "an interpretation of the development and style of A. Wiehl" "... Wiehl fights for a new architectural expression based on patterns, for Prague and Bohemia Of the 16th and 17th centuries, typical and pointed to them for the first time when he built his "sgraffito house" in Poštovská Street, and since then he has diligently collected monuments of our Renaissance, studied them and, where possible, sought to enjoy them on his buildings. by reason of which we speak of "the Czech Renaissance; we feel the legitimacy of this name, but no one has yet determined exactly what the character of those buildings matters ... " [26] [27]
Wiehl's link
The tomb of Antonín Wiehl in the arcades of the Vyšehrad cemetery
Wiehl left behind several dozen Neo-Renaissance buildings, the vast majority of which were declared a cultural monument. [28] Influenced a wide range of younger architects. [29] (The name Wiehl's house is also used for the house that his brother Julius Wiehl built in Slaný in 1879–1880 according to Wiehl's design). [30] and is entered in the Central List of Cultural Monuments [31] [32] [33] [34] [35] ). He remained faithful to his unpretentious patriotism even in his last will. Wiehl bequeathed the house on Wenceslas Square to the Czech Academy of Sciences and Arts in his will . [1] and according to Wiehl's wishes, since his death, it has served as the property of the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic for the needs of the Academia publishing house . A commemorative plaque on the ground floor of Wiehl's house reminds visitors of the publishing house and bookstore:
CK BUILDING BOARD ARCHITECT / ANTONÍN WIEHL / AND HIS WIFE / MARIE WIEHL / ROD. LUKÁŠOVÁ / DEDICATED THIS HOUSE / AND OTHERS THEIR OWNS / CZECH ACADEMY OF THE EMPEROR / FRANCIS JOSEF FOR SCIENCE / SLOVAKIA AND ART, / IN ORDER IT WAS ESTABLISHED BY / THE ARCHITECT FUND / ANT. WIEHLA AND THE WIFE / HIS MARIE TO ENCOURAGING / SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERIES / AND TECHNICAL INVENTIONS.
—Wiehl House Memorial Plaque [36]
He also gave equally generously to other Czech institutions in science, education and the arts. [37] The inscription on Wiehl's tomb in the arcades of the Vyšehrad cemetery faithfully captures the significance and scope of his support for Czech science, education and art: ... having the honor and glory of his nation at heart and human progress determined millions of assets to Czech scientific and technical inventions , lives ....
Wiehl House (Prague) 1896 ii
Wiehl's House is a designation for the Neo-Renaissance house on Wenceslas Square No. 792 situated on the corner of Wenceslas Square and Vodičkova Street.
"The central motif of the painting decoration consists of two cycles from the life of a burgher . In the spirit of the contemporary notion of virtues, he is depicted as a merchant , scholar and defender of his city. Mikoláš Aleš worked on the theme by painting six figures in the fields of the third floor . Below them, on the second floor, are painted significant scenes from bourgeois life, which complement the sayings in cartouches above the upper figures. The cycle of life has as its motto the inscription "Life - pilgrimage to God". The first four paintings are (from left to right) painted on the facade of Wenceslas Square and the last two (again from left to right) are painted on the facade in Vodičkova Street."
The house was built for his needs in the years 1894 - 96 according to his own project by a prominent Czech architect of the 19th century Antonín Wiehl .
The authors of the paintings on the facade are Mikoláš Aleš and Josef Fanta . The house was built on land after the demolition of the original building, which Wiehl bought in 1894.
Wiehl bequeathed the house on Wenceslas Square in his will to the Czech Academy of Sciences and Arts . [1] and according to Wiehl's wishes, since his death, it has served as the property of the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic for the needs of the Academia publishing house .
The house is registered in the Central List of Cultural Monuments of the Czech Republic . [2]
Basic information
Style :neo-renaissance
Architects: Antonín Wiehl ; author fig. paintings Mikoláš Aleš , ornamental decoration by Josef Fanta
Construction: 1894–1896
Reconstruction: reconstruction after 1945
Current owner: The Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic
Address: Wenceslas Square 792/34, Prague , Czech Republic Czechia
Street: Wenceslas Square and Vodickova
Coordinates: 50 ° 4′55.03 ″ N , 14 ° 25′33.61 ″ E
Wiehl's house is situated as a corner on the corner of Wenceslas Square and Vodičkova Street. [3]
It has four floors, 4 × 11 window axes , decorative gables and dormers on the gable roof .
On the ridge of the roof is a turret with a gallery. There is a portal on the facade to Vodičkova street. Plasters are mostly painted.
The plastic elements of the facade are made partly in stucco , partly from sandstone
In the extreme axis on the 2nd and 4th floor bay window connected by a balcony .
Business premises were designed on the ground floor, a café on the first floor, and apartments and offices on the other floors. [4]
Wiehl's house is one of the most striking Neo-Renaissance houses in Prague. [5]
The area and thematic breadth of the painting decoration is unparalleled among the houses in Prague built at the end of the 19th century.
Wiehl himself designed the artistic decoration of the facade and the themes of the paintings. [6]
It was based on its concept of the "Czech" Renaissance and determined the areas of the facade for decoration and its composition .
Wiehl used his collection of stories on historic buildings to decorate the house in the style of so-called "talking architecture".
He chose the ones he liked as bearers of " wit , humor , irony , but also wisdom and morality ." [7]
The paintings cover practically the entire facade to the square and a substantial area of the facade to Vodičkova Street .
The paintings do not only affect the shop window on the ground floor and part of the first floor.
The author of the ornamental decoration is Josef Fanta . The figural decoration was realized according to the design of Mikoláš Alš . [10]
The paintings on the house according to these designs were made by painters Láďa Novák and A. Hofbauer, assisted by František Urban and Vilém Trsek.
The painting decoration of the house is very rich. Contains ornaments , cartouches , masks , camomiles , containers , floral decor, fruit festoons , ribbons in Czech national colors. Naked figures in typical Michelangelo's poses and children with musical instruments are represented.
On the top floor of the façade to Wenceslas Square, allegories of virtues are painted between the windows, cupids, shields and symbols of Day and Night are painted in the gable in Vodičková Street, and the masks of War and Peace are painted under the crown ledge .
The central motif of the painting decoration consists of two cycles from the life of a burgher . In the spirit of the contemporary notion of virtues, he is depicted as a merchant , scholar and defender of his city. Mikoláš Aleš worked on the theme by painting six figures in the fields of the third floor . Below them, on the second floor, are painted significant scenes from bourgeois life, which complement the sayings in cartouches above the upper figures. The cycle of life has as its motto the inscription "Life - pilgrimage to God". The first four paintings are (from left to right) painted on the facade of Wenceslas Square and the last two (again from left to right) are painted on the facade in Vodičkova Street.
The judge with the child and the inscription "Baba in front, God only leads the thread" is placed above the scene of baptism
the student with the inscription "A tree grows and stands" is above a child and a teacher, equipped with a globe , a book, weapons and a horse.
Half-naked girl with an apple with the inscription "You have me - you don't care, you lose - you know" and a picture of the couple
Aleš's paintings from Vodičkova street. Citizen defender and old man with family
A burgher with the inscription "We are good - no one is wrong" and below him a businessman with bills, a helper and a boy with a boat.
On the facade of Vodičkova Street, a knight is painted with the slogan "If you don't defend, you don't ask" and a scene of the king passing a burgher to a knight.
An image of an old man in a family circle as a symbol of a full life and above it Moran with the memento "There is no root against Moraine".
The façade of Wiehl's house contains traditional Renaissance motifs in its painting decoration. From the Czech national tradition, folklore, scenes from history and Slavic mythology ( Morana ) are represented as comments on the paintings. He shows the image of human life as a contemporary ideal of an active and successful burgher. [7]
House history
Antonín Wiehl - architect, builder and patron
Wiehl has lived in the new house since 1896 and also had his office as an architect and builder . He had his extensive art collections, a library and other antiques stored in the house. In the last years of his life after completing active construction work, he devoted himself to organizing his collections and working on documents for the Commission for the Inventory of Architectural , Artistic and Historical Monuments of the Royal Capital City of Prague [11] He also prepared documents for his will , according to which the house on Wenceslas Square bequeathed. Czech Academy of Sciences and Arts (in addition to his property to establish the Institute of National Economy, which he drafted. [1] Wiehl also died in this house. His patronage was fulfilled and the house has been owned by the Czech Academy of Sciences and Arts and its legal successors: after 1918 the Czech Academy of Sciences and Arts (ČAVU) the Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences of Czechoslovakia and after 1992 the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic [12] It is currently managed by the Center for Joint Activities of the ASCR, vvi [13] Academia , which has on the ground floor and on the 1st floor rep [14] Due to its architectural value, the Wiehl House was declared a cultural monument with effect from 3 May 1958 and is entered in the Central List of Cultural Monuments of the Czech Republic with register number 39967 / 1-1138. [2] During the May Uprising of 1945, Wiehl's house was damaged by the German bombing of Wenceslas Square and repaired in the 1950s. [15] The paintings on the facades of the house were repeatedly restored. [16] The ground floor of the house was modified in connection with the construction of an underpass on Wenceslas Square in the years 1967 - 1968 , when the arcade on the ground floor in Vodičkova Street was modified, from which the house is connected to the underpass by a staircase. The original rustication of the ground floor (its continuation on the 1st floor is visible) has been replaced by polished stone tiles. Subsequently, in connection with the construction of the Můstek station of line A of the Prague metro, the house is connected to the metro station by this underpass. Wiehl's house is presented to tourists and visitors to Prague as an important tourist destination. [17] An information board is located on the ground floor of the facade of Wenceslas Square. [18] [19]
In 2016, a more extensive repair of the house took place (facades, roofs, interiors).
Wiehl's house in the context of Wiehl's neo-Renaissance
The facades of the buildings designed by Antonín Wiehl have been welcomed by the public and experts since the 1970s as a new element in the decoration of houses and in the atmosphere of Prague's streets. [20] Wiehl gradually refined his conception of the Czech Neo-Renaissance in the decoration of his houses. Wiehl's house is the tenth tenement house designed by Wiehl in Prague. [21] [22] On his designs of houses, two directions can be observed: the first direction are houses with facade decoration formed by a combination of gray masonry, sgraffito and Renaissance gables (or lunette cornices). Wiehl's house belongs to the second group, where painting and sgraffito dominate the entire facade. [23] In the project, Wiehl defined the area for sgraffito and his own decoration designs were made in cartons by the painter Mikoláš Aleš, who collaborated with Wiehl in the 1970s and 1980s on the decoration of a number of houses (eg House No. 1682 Na Poříčí , Old Town Waterworks ). The culmination of this collaboration is undoubtedly Aleš's allegories on the monumental decoration of Wiehl's house. The architect entrusted the ornamental sgraffito, which began to appear on Prague's facades in the 1970s, mainly thanks to Wiehl, to Josef Fant. [24] [25] Wiehl's colleague architect Jan Koula Wiehl's efforts were defined in 1883 in the Reports of the Association of Architects as "an interpretation of the development and style of A. Wiehl" "... Wiehl fights for a new architectural expression based on patterns, for Prague and Bohemia Of the 16th and 17th centuries, typical and pointed to them for the first time when he built his "sgraffito house" in Poštovská Street, and since then he has diligently collected monuments of our Renaissance, studied them and, where possible, sought to enjoy them on his buildings. by reason of which we speak of "the Czech Renaissance; we feel the legitimacy of this name, but no one has yet determined exactly what the character of those buildings matters ... " [26] [27]
Wiehl's link
The tomb of Antonín Wiehl in the arcades of the Vyšehrad cemetery
Wiehl left behind several dozen Neo-Renaissance buildings, the vast majority of which were declared a cultural monument. [28] Influenced a wide range of younger architects. [29] (The name Wiehl's house is also used for the house that his brother Julius Wiehl built in Slaný in 1879–1880 according to Wiehl's design). [30] and is entered in the Central List of Cultural Monuments [31] [32] [33] [34] [35] ). He remained faithful to his unpretentious patriotism even in his last will. Wiehl bequeathed the house on Wenceslas Square to the Czech Academy of Sciences and Arts in his will . [1] and according to Wiehl's wishes, since his death, it has served as the property of the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic for the needs of the Academia publishing house . A commemorative plaque on the ground floor of Wiehl's house reminds visitors of the publishing house and bookstore:
CK BUILDING BOARD ARCHITECT / ANTONÍN WIEHL / AND HIS WIFE / MARIE WIEHL / ROD. LUKÁŠOVÁ / DEDICATED THIS HOUSE / AND OTHERS THEIR OWNS / CZECH ACADEMY OF THE EMPEROR / FRANCIS JOSEF FOR SCIENCE / SLOVAKIA AND ART, / IN ORDER IT WAS ESTABLISHED BY / THE ARCHITECT FUND / ANT. WIEHLA AND THE WIFE / HIS MARIE TO ENCOURAGING / SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERIES / AND TECHNICAL INVENTIONS.
—Wiehl House Memorial Plaque [36]
He also gave equally generously to other Czech institutions in science, education and the arts. [37] The inscription on Wiehl's tomb in the arcades of the Vyšehrad cemetery faithfully captures the significance and scope of his support for Czech science, education and art: ... having the honor and glory of his nation at heart and human progress determined millions of assets to Czech scientific and technical inventions , lives ....