zámek Valdov Chateau

The chateau Valdov stood in the settlement Lesná near Hrzína and with its history maps the development of Czech noble architecture from the late Middle Ages. A construction that could be an interesting historical memory today exists only in the form of foundations.

The beginnings of the construction dates back to 1461, when they had the original Gothic chateau built by Šlikové. It was therefore a late Gothic construction, which in its time was a modern architectural solution. Gothic was pushed out at the time, but it was maintained for a long time with Czech noble buildings.

In 1545 the village and the chateau was acquired by Jiří Multz z Wallhofu. With the arrival of the new владельh family came also gradual changes of the construction which reflected architectural preferences of the time. The Multz of Wallohof had the chateau remodeled in a Renaissance way and extended it to a wing. This reconstruction meant a typical transformation of medieval Gothic building into a set that reflected Renaissance ideas of comfort and representation.

Around two and a half centuries, the chateau remained a Renaissance building until another major reconstruction took place in 1803. At that time, it was reformatted in a baroque fashion and was thus given a definitive form in which it existed until the 20th century. The Baroque design was the last architectural intervention the chateau experienced.

In 1945, after the end of World War II, the chateau belonged to the Czechoslovak state, which established a children's recovery facility. Unfortunately, the state did not care much about the chateau and gradually faded over the following years. Later, the fact that it belonged to the state property that operated the warehouse made the matter even more complicated. The chateau changed its function from a representative noble residence to a storage area - a transformation that witnessed the decline of a historical building.

1990 was basically the end of his physical existence for the chateau. Since the early 1990s, it has been gradually dismantled. Of the once representative building that survived for forty years and four architectural periods, only the foundations remained.