The Collerodo-Mansfeld family can trace their roots back a thousand years to Italy (on the Collerodo side). They were elevated to noble rank in 1588 and the two families came together through marriage, inheritance and royal decree in 1789. They owned extensive estates in Austria and Czechoslovakia, much of which was lost in the 20th […]
Standing on an elevated position at the top of Wenceslas Square in Prague is the impressive neoclassical National Museum, designed by Josef Schultz as an architectural symbol of the Czech National Revival, built from 1885 – 1891 to allow expansion of the Museum then housed in the Nostitz Palace, and recently reopened after major refurbishment. Next door […]
One of Prague’s hidden secrets is Prague City Gallery on the 2nd floor of the Municipal Library which itself was built between 1925 and 1928 in that flowering of Czech independence to the designs of Frantisek Roth, who was a student of the Austrian architect Otto Wagner, with statues above the entrance portico by Ladislav […]
Down at the bottom of the hill from which rises the castle in Prague, the Wallenstein Riding School is located on the perimeter of the garden of the early Baroque palace constructed in the 17th century for Albrecht of Wallenstein by Italian architects Andrea Spezza and Nicolo Sebregondi. Being a riding school, the building has […]
What a sight 18th and early 19th century Edinburgh must have been, with an army of building contractors hard at work constructing the neo-classical New Town northwards and westwards from the medieval Old Town rising towards the Castle across from this hive of activity, giving the city it’s nickname as ‘Athens of the North’ and […]
Following the example of the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, the Prague Museum of Decorative Arts, founded in 1885, opened its first exhibition galleries in 1900 in the austere neo-renaissance building on the banks of the River Danube, designed Josef Schulz. Over a century later, the first new galleries in the completely-renovated building are […]
It’s an expedition; it would be easy to catch a taxi, but that doesn’t feel like the right thing to do; it is more adventurous to travel on the metro from the city centre and then, with the necessary technological assistance of google maps, walk as the only pedestrians along a busy major road and […]
In 1968, as the Russian tanks rolled into Czechoslovakia and his home city of Prague, Jan Koblasova was away in Italy and subsequently gained asylum in Germany, while his work left at home was confiscated by the authorities. One of Czechoslovakia’s leading artists, and recognised across Europe (but little-known in the UK), the diverse range […]
As you leave the lift lobby on the top floor of the huge brutal concrete building, its atrium more reminiscent of a modern department store than an art gallery, four red carpets run ahead of you. Side by side, these carpets have irregular steps and waves and are not completely rolled out. This is not […]
The Extreme Light Infrastructure (ELI) project is part of an ambitious European strategy to support large international experimentation facilities across the continent. The lasers at ELI will have intensities 10 times higher than anything currently achievable and will be used for research into material sciences, engineering, medicine, biology, chemistry, pharmacy and astrophysics. The first centre, […]
"The many great gardens of the world, of literature and poetry, of painting and music, of religion and architecture, all make the point as clear as possible: The soul cannot thrive in the absence of a garden. If you don't want paradise, you are not human; and if you are not human, you don't have a soul."
(Thomas Moore)
To be an architect means having a wide range of interests - architecture, art and creativity in all its variety of forms, sustainability, science and innovation. The greatest interest is often where these different worlds overlap and collide - that is when something imaginative often occurs that pushes us all forward to another place
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