Radnice (Zlaté Hory) Town hall

Welcome to the Golden Mountains. Please stop for a moment and take a deep look at the atmosphere of this place. Right now, you're standing in Freedom Square, and right in front of you is a building that has been serving for centuries as the heart of local government and a symbol of the urban order. It's City Hall. If you look at it, you'll see a two-story, two-storey walled structure that looks balanced and dignified by its appearance. It is a building which, while still today, holds inside its walls stories of a time when these mountains were full of noisy miners and hopes for great wealth.

Let's go back much deeper together in time, up to a thousand five hundred and sixty. Imagine the Zlaté Hory at the time, which was called Cukmantel. It was a period of bloom, a time of gold fever, when people came from different corners to extract precious metal from the depths of the earth. It was in this dynamic and prosperous environment that this town hall was created in the Renaissance style. At that time, the town hall was more than just an office, it was a declaration of power, stability and wealth throughout the city. It was built to reflect the importance of Cukmantel as an important mining center.

Now that you know its beginnings, pay attention to what you see right in front of you. Look carefully at the facade of the building. Notice how the whole facade is divided. If you look at the lower part, on the ground floor, you'll see what the architects call the indicated block rustic. These are the grooves and lines in the plaster that are designed to optically strengthen the building and give it the appearance of a massive stone masonry, even if it is a walled-up building. It's kind of a visual trick that had a building in the eyes of the bystanders make it more resilient and more representative.

Now please move your view up. Notice the horizontal strip that divides the building, the so-called cordon belt. It serves as a fine line between the ground floor and the upper floors and gives the facade a rhythm. And if you look up to the very end of the wall, you will see the crown ledge. It is the rising edge that ends the building and protects its walls from flowing water, but also serves as an elegant frame of the entire building.

When you look at City Hall, you see its present form, which is the result of great changes. The building you see is not exactly what it was in a thousand and five hundred and sixty. History is full of dramatic twists. The key moment was the year one thousand eight hundred twenty-one when the city was hit by a devastating fire. The fire left deep traces in the building and brought great loss. Originally, the town hall had a high Renaissance tower, which ended with a Baroque onion roof. This tower was dominated by the entire square, but it was torn down after the fire. Imagine the change it meant to the city's appearance when this tall building suddenly disappeared from the horizon.

At this very time, after the fire, there was a major reconstruction. An engineer named A. Englisch entered the game. According to his plans, the town hall was transformed into a style called the Empire. This style was very popular in the nineteenth century for state and administrative buildings, because it emphasized simplicity, purity of lines and a certain rigour that should emit authority. It is thanks to him that the city hall has today's appearance, which combines the old Renaissance core with a later, more sparse 19th-century form.

Although you're standing outside now, let's try to imagine for a moment what's inside these walls. In the interior there were very valuable elements that survived centuries and fires. They're rolled arches with sections and cross arches. These stone structures witness a time when it was built for eternity. Jewelry not only carries the weight of the building, but creates a strange, little mysterious atmosphere in the premises, which brings us back to a time when the fate of the city and its inhabitants were decided in silence.

It's fascinating to think how many generations of people have walked through this town hall door. From 16th century rich goldsmiths to Empire officials to today's Golden Mountain residents. The building thus serves as a bridge between different epoch. In order for the town hall to continue to serve future generations, in the year two thousand and sixteen completed the total construction reconstruction. Thanks to this careful reconstruction, the building is today in the state you see it, and its historical details are again clearly legible.

Now if you look at the whole structure again, try to connect all these pieces of the puzzle. You see the Renaissance foundation of the golden blossom, you feel a trail of a tragic fire from the nineteenth century, and you perceive the strict elegance of the empirical reconstruction of engineer English. It's a building that couldn't give up, and after every test, it came back in a new, different, but still dignified form.

Now, before we say good-bye and you go on, I suggest you go around the city hall one more time and watch the light hit it from different angles. Feel how this towering structure fits into the overall rhythm of Liberty Square and how the silent witness of the past remains in this mountain corner.

Thank you for accompanying me to this brief interpretation of the City Hall in the Golden Mountains. I hope that this view of history has helped you to understand what you see before you. Now invited to further explore the beauty of this city. We wish you a pleasant continued journey and many new discoveries. Goodbye.