Prague has completed the reconstruction of the Baroque palace, it is gradually opening to the public
Prague – The Prague Municipality has completed the reconstruction of the baroque Clam-Gallas Palace on Mariánské náměstí. It lasted from 2018 and cost approximately 569 million crowns including VAT. The restored monument was opened today by representatives of the city. The palace will open to the public for the first time on October 28, and next year the premises will be made available to the Prague City Museum (MMP), which will set up an exhibition focused on Baroque Prague. The city is planning a restaurant or shops on the ground floor of the palace.
According to experts, it is one of the best-preserved noble city palaces in the world. The present highly baroque form of the palace was created between 1714 and 1718 by the builder Tomáš Haffenecker according to the design of the Viennese court architect Johann Bernard Fischer from Erlach for Count Jan Václav Gallas. Since the Second World War, the Archive of the City of Prague has been located there, which gradually moved to a new building on Chodovec in 2017.
The reconstruction started about four years ago, preparations for it already in 2010. “This palace embodies the Baroque period, and Prague is perceived worldwide as one of the best destinations to go for Baroque monuments,” said capital city councilor Jan Chabr (TOP 09) today. He added that the municipality will soon call for tenders for the lease of a restaurant, a cafe and three other spaces, which can be, for example, shops or galleries.
According to the architect Petr Malinský, who designed the reconstruction with his studio ARPEMA, archaeologists discovered interesting cellars from the original Gothic buildings, which were later replaced by the palace. The restorers also restored the painted Baroque frescoes by the main staircase.
According to the architect, an interesting discovery concerns the facades, which were originally painted gray, which corresponds to the shape of the reconstructed palace. This also applies to those titans that have been exposed to sandstone for a long time. “However, it turned out that there was never any intention to present the stone, remnants of the original color were found everywhere in the folds,” explained the architect. He added that it was difficult to convince the preservationists on this issue, but they eventually recognized the findings. According to the architect, the building looks from the outside as it looked at the beginning of the 18th century.
Social events will be held in the palace, and the largest part of the premises will then go to the MMP. The first tour day for the public will be September 28. From October 17 to November 17, an exhibition called the Clam-Gallas palace in Prague will be held on Mariánské náměstí, and from October 20 to January 30 next year, an exhibition dedicated to the late Baroque music composer Josef Mysliveček will be on display right in the palace.
The first exhibition under the leadership of the MMP will then bear the title From the Coronation 1723 to the Coronation 1743 and will be held from March 28 next year to January 29, 2024. In the meantime, in June permanent tours of the interiors with period equipment were to be launched on the second floor of the palace. The exhibition dedicated to the Prague Baroque Museum will open in mid-2024, and will house exhibits from the collections of the MMP.