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Villa Bílek

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The Villa Bílek (Czech: Bílkova vila) is a house designed by the Czech sculptor and architect František Bílek in 1911. The villa is located in Hradčany neighbourhood of Prague, Czech Republic, several minutes walk from Hradčanská metro station or Prague Castle. It was designed originally for Bílek himself as his residence and studio. Located on site of former city walls (see preserved Písek Gate nearby) the villa has an unusual shape resembling trace of a scythe in a field. The brickwork masonry is articulated by pillars in form of corn sheaves which evoke Egyptian architecture. Through this building Bílek, who was a deeply religious artist, tried to express his view on substance of life. Villa Bílek has been maintained by Gallery of the Capital City of Prague (Czech: Galerie hlavního města Prahy) since 1963. It houses a public exposition that introduces many works by Bílek, as well as original interior fittings and furniture collection which was made according to his design.

Excerpt from the Wikipedia article Villa Bílek (License: CC BY-SA 3.0, Authors, Images).

Villa Bílek
Chotkova, Prague Hradčany

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Latitude Longitude
N 50.095 ° E 14.408333333333 °
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Chotkova

Chotkova
118 01 Prague, Hradčany
Prague, Czechia
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Písek Gate
Písek Gate

Písek Gate (Czech: Písecká brána), also called Bruska Gate (Czech: Bruská brána) is a former city gate of Baroque fortification of Prague, Czech Republic. Once belonging to the fortification section called Marian Walls (Czech: Mariánské hradby) it is located in K Brusce Street in the Hradčany neighbourhood, not far from Hradčanská metro station. Other sights in the vicinity include Royal Summer Palace or Villa Bílek. Nowadays Písek Gate is the only preserved gate of the city proper and one of four remaining of the whole fortification system (Tábor, Leopold and Chotek (Brick) gates are part of Vyšehrad Fortress). The name has nothing in common with town of Písek in Southern Bohemia but it derives from a previous medieval gate which used to stand several hundred steps away, at Písek, a defunct suburb of Lesser Quarter (located approximately where Valdštejnská Street is today). This suburb together with the old gate was demolished in the 1620s in order to make space for then newly built Wallenstein Palace. The alternative name derives from the Brusnice (Bruska) stream, a tiny tributary of the Vltava River running along northern side of Prague Castle. The gate was situated between bastions of St George and St Ludmilla. It was built as one of latest parts of Baroque fortification in 1721 by architect Giovanni Battista Alliprandi after a design by František Vogot. Písek Gate serving northbound traffic was one of three city gates in the left bank part of Prague (the other were westbound Imperial Gate (Czech: Říšská brána) located in what is now Dlabačov Street and southbound Újezd Gate (Czech: Újezdská brána) in Újezd Street). During the War of the Austrian Succession in 1741 understaffed and weakly defended Písek Gate was where troops of Charles Albert, Elector of Bavaria and claimant to the throne of Bohemia, entered Prague. After the Austro-Prussian War of 1866 it was decided that fortified cities were no longer necessary and the fortification ring of Prague started to be gradually dismantled. The Marian Walls survived until the turn of the 20th century when only fractions, including Písek Gate, were left. Thanks to a new road bypassing it, the gate was no longer considered an obstacle for growing traffic and remained standing. In 2000 - 2002 Písek Gate underwent restoration and was turned into a café and gallery; wedding ceremonies are held there as well.

Institute of the Czech Language
Institute of the Czech Language

The Institute of the Czech Language (Czech: Ústav pro jazyk český, ÚJČ) is a scientific institution dedicated to the study of the Czech language. It is one of the institutes of the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic. Its headquarters are in Prague and it has a branch in Brno.The institute was created in 1946, by transformation of the former Office for the Czech Lexicon (Kancelář Slovníku jazyka českého), founded in 1911 by the former Czech Academy of Sciences and Arts. In 1953 it became a part of the Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences and became a public research institution in 2007.In the Czech Republic, the institute is widely accepted as the regulatory body of the Czech language. Its recommendations on standard Czech (spisovná čeština) are viewed as binding by the educational system, newspapers and others, although this has no legal basis. The institute's rich publishing activity has two main branches, firstly scientific monographies, magazines (Naše řeč, Slovo a slovesnost) and articles, that could be viewed as conversation between bohemists themselves, discussing matters of the Czech language. Secondly, what could be considered output of these discussions, is a consistent set of rules on vocabulary, grammar and orthography. Of the recommendations published most weight carry those, to which the institute itself assigns "codification status": monolingual dictionaries of the Czech language, Slovník spisovného jazyka českého and Slovník spisovné češtiny pro školu a veřejnost, and the orthography manual Pravidla českého pravopisu. The recommendations published in new editions of these are usually subsequently accepted by a ministry of education to be used in schools. The publication of new editions has often been a source of heated debate and national controversy, as recently as 1993.The approach of the institute is decidedly prescriptive, in that it leaves uncodified all varieties other than standard, such as common Czech spoken by many Czechs. There have been unsuccessful attempts to enshrine the position of the Czech language and its minders in legislation, akin to the Language law of Slovakia.