Radnice – Andělská kolej Town hall

Welcome to the heart of old Prague. You're standing just outside the City Hall of the Angel College, and you've just entered a space where time doesn't flow like a river, but a layer like a sediment in a deep scar of the earth. Feel this atmosphere. There's a city roaring around you, people moving fast, but right here, at this house number 16, time stops. In front of you is a building that acts at first sight as a coherent whole, but in fact it is a fascinating puzzle of various epoch that touches each other but lives in their own worlds. Look at the building ahead. What you see above the street level is the work of architects Vladimir Jezek and Oktav Koutsky. This above ground section was built as a new building in the years one thousand nine hundred twenty-six to one thousand nine hundred twenty-eight. It is the work of its time, which was to bring a new order to the then urban landscape. But don't be fooled by this look. This building is just a mask that covers a much deeper and older truth. To understand it, we need to move deeper into the past, to the very foundations of our civilization in this place. The history of this house is incredibly long. The first written trail of the existence of this place appeared in the year one thousand three hundred forty-four. Imagine the centuries this house has lived. He saw the king, he saw the merchants, he saw the ups and downs of the whole empire. _ Over time, however, the city was changing and old Prague had to give way to a new order. At the beginning of the twentieth century, there was a large rendering process in this area, the process of cleaning and rebuilding old neighborhoods. That was a drastic move. In the year of a thousand and nine hundred members, the process of demolition of the upper floors of the original medieval house was completed. The city tried to be modern, it tried to be clean and broad, but in this process, the soul of the old city was almost lost. And here comes the most important thing. Even though most of the original house was demolished, there was something left. Something that couldn't be destroyed. Under that new layer from the 1920s, there is a valuable Romanesque core. They're underground spaces that form the original medieval core of this house. These basement rooms are so old that their history dates far before the first mention in the year three hundred forty-four. They are stone witnesses of ancient times, who survived everything. Since the year one thousand nine hundred fifty-eight, these premises have been recognised as a registered cultural monument. It's like the roots of a tree that holds this whole building, even though its crown keeps changing. Now pay attention to the details directly at the level of your eyes. If you look at the entrance part, notice the little nickel with the semicircular wedge. It's a portal that might surprise you a little bit. If you look at him carefully, you'll see that his height is very small. They're only five inches tall. It's a fascinating detail that tells us something very human in direct contact with the past. It shows that the people who crossed these thresholds at the time were much smaller than we are today. It's like a window into their physical world, proof of how the human body was and how the world was measured. This house and its surroundings were home to many important characters. There have been stories in his history of people whose names are now written in books. Here we can mention John the ninth of Wednesday or Vincent Nidek of Zřelka. They were the people who formed the society back then. But this place has another, deeper, maybe a little darker quite. Some of these old underground spaces today serve as part of an exhibition dedicated to Franz Kafka. Imagine the sound. Kafka, a man whose work often touched labyrinth, anxiety and hidden structures of reality, is associated with these deep, Romanesque basement spaces. These spaces are like the materialization of his ideas - they are narrow, old, mysterious and deep beneath the surface of ordinary life. In addition, other names like Kamil Hilbert or Karel Chytil are associated with this place, which were part of the wider cultural and social events of Prague. Each name is just another string in the long chain of events that took place here. You may now be asking what is the greatest mystery in this place. It's the dual nature of the building. It's the constant conflict between what we see and what's hidden. On the surface you can see the architecture of the 1920s, pure, clear and arranged. But beneath your footsteps, just a few meters below the pavement, lies dark, cold, and relentlessly old Romanesque stones. It's like walking on the surface of a modern city, but underneath you, the heart of a medieval village would still be beating. The invisible layer of history is what gives this place its true weight. Now I won't hold you any longer. I don't just want to tell you, I want to invite you to look at this house again, but this time in a different way. Not as an ordinary building on the street anymore, but as a living organism that has its roots in a deep past. Look at the details you may have missed. Feel the atmosphere of a place where the modern world connects with ancient darkness and light. I wish you a beautiful further journey along these historic paths of the old town. Enjoy each moment of discovery. Goodbye.