Lyra Manor farm

Lyra is a Baroque farm complex that belonged to the Cistercian monastery in Žďár nad Sázavou. It is located opposite the monastery, beyond the Bránský Pond, and got its name from its ground plan, which resembles the musical instrument, a lyre.

The origin of the farm is connected with Abbot Václav Vejmluvou. He headed the Žďár monastery from seventeen hundred five to seventeen thirty-eight, and during his tenure the monastery reached the peak of its prosperity. In seventeen hundred six, thanks to the abbot of Sedlec, Jindřích Snopka, he became acquainted with the architect Jan Blažej Santini-Aichel. Their collaboration lasted seventeen years, until Santini's death, and during this time a number of outstanding buildings were created. Santini began in Žďár with the renovation of the convent church, but ultimately influenced the appearance of the entire monastery complex and its surroundings.

Santini is not explicitly documented as the author of the Lyra farm. However, his authorship is not in doubt, because the building resulted from his work for Abbot Vejmluvou and from the overall design of the complex. What the farm originally looked like is shown in a depiction of the monastery from the northwest from the collection of Dismas of Hofer, dated seventeen twenty-two. In it, a large farm is seen beyond the Bránský, otherwise also called the Abbot's Pond, already completely finished. Its appearance is also evidenced by Mansfeld's engraving from seventeen thirty-four.

Santini placed the extensive farm on terrain that slopes slightly toward the pond's shore. He conceived this purely functional building in complete symmetry. He also aligned the visual axis of the farm with the windows of the monastery's prelature, and thus connected it with the entire complex of buildings. He designed the farm in the spirit of what is called ground plan symbolism, where the shape of the ground plan itself represents something.

The complex consists of six, or according to another count, seven buildings and four gates. The long western wing has a single-storey center with seven window axes, its side sections are ground floor. Two opposite gates connect to them, and behind them are long ground-floor wings of barns. Santini bent these barns in an S-shape in the ground plan, and thus created the characteristic shape of a lyre. On the eastern side, behind another pair of opposite gates, there are three more smaller wings. The last building is a carriage shed, located on the axis of the farm courtyard.

The ground plan of the farm remained original, Baroque. However, the individual buildings have been marked to varying degrees by inappropriate reconstructions, and therefore their Baroque character is barely noticeable today.