Site: St Anna' s Church

Location: Zlata Street ( entrance from Liliova' Street) Prague's Old Town - foot of the Charles  Bridge

site location

exterior facade

Style: Gothic Architecture (Luxembourg period)             

Period: Built between 1313 - 1330


Ownership: Dominican Convent

Description: St. Anna's is an important landmark in the cultural heritage of Prague and is a protected building. It was originally built as a gothic church, and has since been adapted to other uses. It is now used as a cultural center in Prague, which is owned by The National Theater, and is operated under the title of 'Prague Crossroads' by The Dagmar and Vaclav Havel Foundation VIZE 97, to promote the crossroads of different cultural influences, intersecting in Prague over the centuries.

Background: In 1782, St. Ann’s Church became one of many Catholic structures converted to secular use by the Emperor Joseph II as part of his reformation program. Over the last 200 years it was used as an industrial building that housed printing machinery and then as a warehouse. Three floors were installed within to tailor the church to its new function, blocking the vault from view, damaging murals, and disrupting the timber configuration from the 1730s. An unsound arch collapsed in the early 1880s and no reconstruction was attempted until 1989, when insensitive renovations removed pieces of the original Gothic truss.

Construction: Twice as high as it is broad and perfectly symmetrical, timber roofing, gothic truss system, brick gothic facade

Reconstruction: The church was transformed into a functioning community center, becoming a part of the Prague Crossroads Program to promote cultural dialogue. St. Ann’s is now the home of that organization and functions as a performance space. The 400 seated guests for concerts, lectures, and public forums can look up and see the original Gothic nave.However, the reconstruction of the Prague Crossroads is still ongoing. In recent years, for example, the restorers who were working on the renovation of the unique frescoes in the former church succeeded in finding unrivaled paintings from the 14th century of exceptional artistic quality and scope which are comparable to similar works at Karlštejn or in St. Vitus’ Cathedral. Its is now a unique cultural space that is created to provide a comfort comparable to other similarly oriented spaces. British architect of Czech origin, Eva Jiřičná, who is the author of the architectural solution, has played a significant part in this work. The place where an altar painting used to be now holds a work by the well-known Czech painter Adriena Šimotová entitled "Ecstatic Figure". Artists whose works also shaped the interior of the Prague Crossroads include Kurt Gebauer and Bořek Šípek.

gothic truss system

nave

Interior of Saint Anna's