Rudolfinum & the View from Mánes Bridge

Why is it significant?

Here on the square in front of the Rudolfinum, you finally have the river in front of you. Behind you, a long neo-Renaissance palace with a balustrade full of statues of composers. Ahead, Mánes Bridge, and across the water the castle on its ridge.

Key Facts

Open the walk

Here on the square in front of the Rudolfinum, you finally have the river in front of you. Behind you, a long neo-Renaissance palace with a balustrade full of statues of composers. Ahead, Mánes Bridge, and across the water the castle on its ridge.

The Rudolfinum was built between 1876 and 1885 by Josef Zítek and Josef Schulz, paid for by the Bohemian Savings Bank and named after Crown Prince Rudolf of Austria. It is the older, more serious cousin of everything you have seen today, the style the Art Nouveau rebels were reacting against. On the 4th of January 1896, the Czech Philharmonic played its first concert here, with Antonín Dvořák conducting his own music. Between the wars, the building even served as the parliament of Czechoslovakia.

Look up at the composers on the roof. During the occupation, the story goes, the Nazi authorities ordered the statue of Felix Mendelssohn removed, because he was of Jewish origin. The workmen did not know which statue was which, so they chose the one with the biggest nose... and it turned out to be Richard Wagner, Hitler's favourite. It is the scene that opens Jiří Weil's novel Mendelssohn Is on the Roof, and whether or not it happened exactly so, it has become part of the building.

The square itself is named after Jan Palach, the student who set himself on fire in January 1969 in protest against the Soviet-led occupation. He studied at the Faculty of Arts, the building on the side of the square, where a memorial recalls him.

Now walk onto Mánes Bridge, opened in 1914 and named after the painter Josef Mánes, and turn to face the castle. Somewhere inside St Vitus Cathedral glows Mucha's stained-glass window, and down here the river carries the reflections of a century of facades. You have crossed fifty years of Prague in one afternoon, from neo-Renaissance pride to gilded leaves to Cubist crystals. Stay for the light on the water... this is the best seat in town.