Old Town Hall became an administrative centre of the Old Town of Prague in 1338, when the estates acquired approval of king John of Bohemia to establish it. It was here where the Czech noblemen elected Jirí of Podebrady as a Bohemian king in 1458. After the Battle of Bílá hora, it was used as a prison for the leading rebels, out of which 27 were decapitated on the 21st June 1621 on the square in front of the city hall (crosses marked in the pavement). The 18th century brought about significant modifications, when the four Prague towns united into one and the Old Town Hall became the seat of the town’s united official administration in 1784. The modifications were attended by the following architects: arch. Matej Hummel, arch. Petr Nobile, arch. Pavel Sprenger, arch. Bernard Gueber, Jan Belský and arch. Bedrich Münzberger. In the same year, the first commemorative book was established and since then, significant visitors of the city hall add their signatures in this book. The most prominent ones receive copies of the city hall keys as a symbolic key to the capital city. Since 1871, weddings have been held at the city hall.
From the 1st July 1922 until the beginning of October 1941, the Old Town hall stored remains of an unknown Czechoslovak soldier from a cemetery near Zborov. During the occupation, the tomb of the unknown soldier was removed upon an order of K. H. Frank.
During the last days of occupation, the city hall was the centre of the uprising, and the Czech National Council worked within its basement. On the 7th May 1945, the city hall was shot at and set on fire. The Eastern and the Northern wing opposite the Týn temple were completely destroyed, and the tower with the astronomical clock (Orloj) and the chapel were badly damaged. On the ground floor, the archive of the Capital City of Prague was destroyed, together with a library and valuable collections. To commemorate the 30th anniversary of the liberation, the collapsed part of the building was repaired, preserved, and the blank window was furnished with a grille and memorial plaques. The authors of these modifications were ing. arch. J. Korecek and academic sculptor J. O. Lankáš. There were several attempts to open tenders for completing the destroyed parts of the building, yet they were never realized. Surprisingly, the fire did not destroy the elevator within the city hall’s tower, which was made in 1927 and it was a rare piece, which was in operation for a long time. It was taken over by the National Technical Museum and added in its collections, and in 2000 a new elevator with a barrier-free construction was finally put into operation within the main staircase and in the city hall’s tower.
Throughout its existence, the city hall passed all the architectural periods. Today, it is made up of a block of houses from different eras, which were gradually added to it. The base is formed by Romanic houses, the remains of which are located in the basements. Yet the dominating style in the interiors and the exteriors is Gothic.
The author this painting is Vincenc Morstadt. You can find this painting in book 'Praha v obrazech Vincence Morstadta' (
visit link) .
Vincent Morstadt (
visit link) (1802-1875), a court clerk by profession, was the most famous painter of urban vistas in Bohemia in the 19th century.