Klášter augustiniánů kanovníků na Karlově Monastery

Klášter augustiniánů kanovníků na Karlově is one of the major buildings of the New Town of Prague. It was founded in 1350 by Emperor Karel IV. himself, which thus continued to systematically equip the new city district. The charter was issued on 18 September 1350, the papal confirmation came a year and a half later (22 February 1352). The construction began immediately in 1351 and the church was consecrated as part of an important ceremony in 1377; Karel IV. and his son Václav IV. were present at the ordination, and the Archbishop Jan Očko z Vlašimi led the ceremony. The construction of the monastery complex itself probably took years. Its considerable importance is also demonstrated by the architectural solution: the monastery church has a completely unusual octave floor plan, by which it refers to the coronation church in Aachen and its co-ordinator is Saint Charles the Great as a renewable empire.

After the Hussite wars, the monastery faded. But he was lucky: the city rented it to a private owner (1434), but already back in 1437 the canons returned. The destroyed buildings were restored in 1498, when the church was reconsecrated. The late Middle Ages and the early New Ages were many wounds to the monastery. In 1572, Abbot Mikuláš Venc complained that the buildings were fading; The subsequent repairs from 1575 saved the church the vaults ceiling which was preserved to this day. In 1603 the building was struck by lightning, eight years later (1611) when he returned from Germany he was plundered by the Pasov troops - in the ambush the abbot and several canons died. But the monastery has come true. After returning the goods (1629) and after the Thirty Years' War, when he served as a military armory, a major reconstruction, probably designed by Carlo Lurago, took place under the leadership of Abbot Isidor de Croce in 1653- 1658. A new expansion was brought about by the 18th century: in 1716 a new prelature was created built until 1719. These buildings were already Baroque and the monastery gradually changes its face.

The monastery is an interesting layer of Gothic and Baroque. From the Gothic period, three wings were preserved around the court of Eden, best preserved in the southern wing. The buildings were originally double storey with a cross corridor only on the ground floor. Remarkable are the small windows in the first floors and the large pointy window of the former chapel of St. Charles the Great, which had a rectangular plan and passed through two floors. The layout was based on the Cashew pattern. In today's form, the complex has strong traces of baroque reconstructions: the park-treated courtyard is surrounded by a Baroque building on the north side of the new prelature, an old prelature in the west and a church in the south with a Gothic octave boat, a polygonal presbytery and a tower.

In 1755 the monastery was hit by a fire that required renovation of roofs (1756). The end came at the end of the century: in 1785, Josef II. cancelled it during the great church reforms and turned it into a hospital for terminally ill. It worked here until the 20th century with occasional modernization (1808, 1865-1866). Since 1948 it has been gradually occupied by museums - first as a depository, later as the Border Guard Museum, later as the SNB Museum, and since 1990 the Police of the Czech Republic Museum has been located here, which remains in the buildings to this day.