Peterka House
A young professor put the first Secession facade on Wenceslas Square. The critics did not thank him for it.
At a glance
Peterka House is a four-storey Art Nouveau building at Wenceslas Square 12 in Prague’s New Town, built in 1899 on the site of an older house. Its early-Secession facade and vestibule were designed by Jan Kotěra, architect and professor at the School of Applied Arts and a founding figure of modern Czech architecture; it was his first building in Prague. At the time it was one of the first examples of Art Nouveau in the city, and it drew sharp criticism for breaking with the prevailing styles.
Key facts
- Facade architect: Jan Kotěra (his first Prague building)
- Built: 1899
- Floor plan: architect Vilém Thierhier
- Sculpture: Stanislav Sucharda (incl. the Madonna over the entrance)
- Address: Wenceslas Square 12, New Town, Prague
- Named after: the banker Peterka, a resident
- Style: early Art Nouveau (Secese)
History
The house went up in 1899 in place of an older building known as U Černého orla. The commission for its facade and entrance hall went to Jan Kotěra, who had returned from study in Vienna under Otto Wagner to teach in Prague. Peterka House was his first realised building in the city and an early manifesto of the new architecture in Bohemia.
The plan was drawn by the architect Vilém Thierhier, while the facade decoration was carried out by the sculptor Stanislav Sucharda, responsible for the sculptural work, including the Madonna above the entrance. For the interior, the painter Jan Preisler produced a triptych titled Spring.
Contemporaries found the building provocative, and it was sharply criticised when new. Within a year, however, it housed a bank and other companies, and it is now valued as a key early work of Czech modern architecture.
What you see
The facade is restrained next to the exuberant Art Nouveau that would follow it, which is precisely its interest: Kotěra was feeling for a new language rather than shouting it. Smooth wall surfaces set off concentrated panels of ornament and sculpture, and the Madonna over the doorway anchors the composition.
The representative rooms of the banker’s former apartment survive, along with much of the detailing of the front block, making the building a rare intact early-Secession interior on the square.
Practical information
- The building is in commercial and office use; only parts are publicly accessible.
- The facade is on Wenceslas Square and visible at any time.
- Combine with a walk down the square and into the New Town.
- Time needed: 10 minutes for the exterior.
Getting there
Peterka House stands on Wenceslas Square in central Prague, a few minutes from the Můstek and Muzeum metro stations and well served by trams.
Nearby
- The U Nováků building, a short walk away in the New Town.
- The Mucha Museum and the Municipal House.
- The National Museum at the head of the square.
Sources
- Wikipedia (CS), “Peterkův dům”.
- National Heritage Institute of the Czech Republic (monument catalogue).
- Prague City Tourism heritage information.
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