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New life planned for Vítkov Hill

Rebuilt statue and café part of envisioned 'museum mile'

By Kimberly Ashton
Staff Writer, The Prague Post
May 30th, 2007 issue

VLADIMÍR WEISS/THE PRAGUE POST
At 9 meters tall, Žižka's is said to be the largest equestrian statue.
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The enormous statue of Hussite hero Jan Žižka that has kept watch over Prague from atop Vítkov Hill for the past half-century is due to come down, but only temporarily. The bronze statue will be dismantled, reinforced and rebuilt as part of massive renovations that will add a café and museum to the Vítkov Hill memorial monument.
“Prague is going to lose one of its dominating features for a while,” said Michal Lukeš, the director of the National Museum, which owns the memorial.
Reconstruction began May 22 and is expected to last two years. For at least part of that time the area will be closed to the public, Lukeš says.
Seven companies bid on the project, and the winning firm was Association Hochtief CZ/GEMA ART Group.
When the 230 million Kč ($10.9 million) renovations are completed, the monument will house a museum and feature a café overlooking the city.
“The Vítkov memorial will house a theme exhibition of 20th-century [national] history,” Lukeš said.
The café will sit on the roof of the former mausoleum, on the lower part of the memorial.
“It will not disturb its silhouette or skyline, but there will be a beautiful view from the inside. We are planning to make the roof accessible for the public,” Lukeš said.
Rock of ages
The granite-and-marble structure was first conceived in the early 20th century as a tribute to the country’s military history. “It was built to be a symbolic, monumental remembrance place with a grave of an unknown soldier,” said Ondřej Šefců of the National Heritage Institute. Architect Jan Zázvorka developed the memorial, which was constructed between 1929 and 1932, Šefců said.
The statue of Žižka, the Hussite warrior who defeated Catholic armies in 1420, was cast in 1946 according to a model created by Bohumil Kafka and mounted on the pedestal in 1950. At 9 meters (27 feet) tall, it is said to be the largest equestrian statue in the world. Lukeš said it is, but Šefců has his doubts.
“The credibility of this is questionable because it remains a question whether anyone undertook some comparative research. It is certain that the statue can be considered to be the biggest in the Czech Republic,” Šefců said.
The monument was partially turned into a mausoleum for communist leaders in 1953, after the death of Klement Gottwald, the first communist president of Czechoslovakia.
Vítkov Hill remained a depository for communist notables until after the 1989 revolution. They were removed in the 1990s, Šefců said. Since then, the memorial reintegrated its original purpose as a monument to national history.
Minor renovations were undertaken in the 1990s but were hindered by the fact that the monument’s future use and administration was uncertain, Šefců said. In the meantime, it remained a concrete reminder of Czech history in a society that was undergoing vast changes.
Stone bas-relief sculptures across from the Žižka statue depict significant periods including World War I and the communist takeover.
That a café, a symbol of bourgeois life to some, will be placed on a mausoleum that housed the former graves of communists is itself a testament to the city’s changes over the past 20 years.
Museum mile
Lukeš said he hopes the renovation will cap an envisioned “Museum Mile.”
“It will start at the National Museum and continue over to the former Federal Assembly building, now also a part of the National Museum, and over the Railway Museum, which I hope will be established behind the Masarykovo nadraží train station, [and then to the] Military Museum under Vítkov Hill, finishing precisely with the historical exhibition on Vítkov,” he said.
When complete, the Vítkov memorial will function both as a museum and as a cultural center hosting galas, gatherings, conferences, theatrical performances and concerts, Lukeš said.
“The Vítkov memorial has never been a museum, and thus it is necessary to create a whole new life and make people want to go there — to a living place of knowledge and not a dead monument,” he said.
The opening ceremony is planned for Oct. 28, 2009, the 91st anniversary of Czechoslovakia’s independence from Austria-Hungary.
— Hela Balínová and Naďa Černá contributed to this report.

Kimberly Ashton can be reached at kashton@praguepost.com


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