Schubertova vila Villa

Schubertova vila in Prague Liboci (Prague 6) is a rare example of an antikising neo-Renaissance suburban villa from 1871. The project was designed by architect Zdenko Schubert von Soldern. The area including the garden has been protected as a cultural monument since 1958.

The building was created at the site of an older estate. The architect created it for his father, his lawyer and notary, Dr. Eduard Schubert, a knight from Soldern, and his second wife, Caroline, born Schmidt. In literature, the architect's brother Egon is sometimes misstated as the owner. He was also a lawyer, but he lived with his family in Vinohrady.

The building is a type of Italian suburban villa called Villa suburban. It has an L-shaped floor plan, an outer stairwell, a tower and two open logbooks. The facade in the belts above, below and between the windows is decorated with black and white sgraffiti. This work was created by painter Viktor Schubert ze Soldern, architect's brother, who graduated from Munich and Dresden. Sgraffiti shows two genre processions of putts: the first under VACANZ includes things related to holidays and the second shows festivities. Decorations are complemented by ornaments such as meanders, palmets, garlands, festons and satyre heads. The interior equipment has preserved decorative painting on the wooden tapered ceiling of the northern lodjie.

At the end of the 19th century, the villa passed on to the original owners in another ownership. As a residential house with a garden, it remained maintained and fenced until around 1980 when it was assigned to the Socialist Youth Union. After 1990, the property and the land were sold via the Prague City Office to a foreign entrepreneur. He started an inappropriate adjustment of the roof using skylights, but this was stopped by the state conservation authorities.

The monument is one of the most important works of its author and is a rare building type, as the other buildings of Zdenko Schubert von Soldern in Saxony were destroyed by bombing during World War II. Bad technical condition of the building was documented already in 1979 in the film Love between drops of rain.

The villa is currently situated on a mild slope between the northern wall of the Royal Star and the street Libockou. The building is uninhabited and decaying; The doors and windows are walled up for fear of squatters. Today, the garden is largely tarred and gravel-sprinkled to serve as a parking lot. Its northwest part uses the neighbouring restaurant LibocKá well for sitting.

Schubertova vila is a unique architectural type that is not common in Prague. Despite the current neglect, it retains high value thanks to rare sgraffiti and historical ground plan. Its exterior is worth paying attention to every interested person in Prague's history.