A little paradox to start... the building is called New Town Hall... and began construction in 1348. One wonders if the Czechs have a strange time scale. I don't know what to say myself. Anyway, it's the town hall that is located in a square that is named after Charles IV, the so-called father of the fatherland.
"The construction of the town hall started soon after the establishment of the New Town of Prague in 1348. It was the administration centre of the New Town until 1784, when all the four Prague towns were connected. In 1419, it witnessed an armed conflict between the Catholics and the followers of the Communion under both kinds. The procession lead by Jan Želivský and Jan Žižka asked for the release of their imprisoned followers in front of the town hall. Someone from the town hall threw a stone on the procession, and after that the crowd broke inside and threw the burgrave, two aldermen and several burgess representatives out of the windows on the crowd’s spears and partisans. This first Prague’s defenestration on the 30th July 1419 marked the start of the Hussite revolution. In 1609, representatives of the Bohemian nobility met here to force Emperor Rudolf II to issue a decree that would guarantee religious freedoms. The connected Prague towns were administered by the Old Town Hall from 1748 on, and the object of the New Town Hall became the seat of the national criminal court, and also the original town hall prison was extended and started to be called Prague’s Bastila. Two wards of the ground-floor prison are named after their first prisoners Polévka (soup) and Jelito (pork-blood sausage). The leader of the peasant rebellion in South Bohemian district Chodsko, Jan Sladký Kozina, also tried out the local prison, as well as revolutionaries in 1848, and in 1894 there was a process held here in which the members of the progressive youth associated in the Omladina Movement were condemned, for example Alois Rašín or Stanislav Kostka Neumann.
The Gothic corner tower was built in the second half of the 14th century; new Renaissance windows were made in it in the years 1520 - 26; the tower’s gallery and roof date back to 1722 - 25. In 1651, the emblem of the New Town was mounted on the tower; an astronomical clock was painted and installed in 1668, but removed at the end of the 18th century. The quadrilateral tower with four stories is 42 metres high, and there are 221 stairs leading to the top. On the corner, the so called Prague ell (59.14 cm) is installed for the purposes of public measuring. In the tower, there is a chapel that was Gothic originally, but changed in Baroque style in the 1st half of the 18th century, originally consecrated to Virgin Mary and St. Václav. In the chapel, there are paintings of Virgin Mary with St. Benedict (the main altar painting), and St. George and two wooden sculptures of saints. There is a ceiling allegorical fresco of Right and Justice and rich below-ceiling decorations.
The last reconstruction took place in 1976 - 96, when the premises were adapted to suit the needs of the Prague 2 Municipal Office. There are premises for exhibitions, concerts and social events. On the first floor above Mázhaus, there is an auditorium with a similar vault, where the wedding hall is located."
Source and more information: (
visit link)