Goltz-Kinský Palace in Prague / Palác Goltz-Kinských v Praze
N 50° 05.272 E 014° 25.293
33U E 458619 N 5548560
Goltz–Kinský Palace (Palac Goltz-Kinských) with its beautiful pink and white stucco fasade promotes the special image of Prague's Old Town Square. It was build for count Jan Arnost Goltz in 1755-1765 on the site of three existing medieval buildings.
Waymark Code: WM6G6Y
Location: Hlavní město Praha, Czechia
Date Posted: 05/30/2009
Views: 262
Kinský Palace, also called the Goltz–Kinský Palace, is regarded as the most beautiful Rococo building in Prague. Franz Kafka used to attend a grammar school there at the turn of the 20th century and later it became an exhibition space of the National Gallery in Prague. The exhibition of landscape in Czech art from 17th to the 20th century is situated there.
The Kinsky Palace was built in 1755–1765 by Anselmo Lurago or Kilian I. Dientzenhofer – there is a dispute over the authorship. It has a Rococo facade, but the architecture itself is still Baroque. The frontage of the palace is decorated with allegoric sculptures of four elements and Antique gods. This decoration was damaged at the end of World War II in 1945, so there are replicas nowadays. The interior of the Kinský Palace was modified in Empire style in 1830s.
The palace was originally a residence of Count J.A.Goltz. After his death in 1768 it was bought by Count František Oldrich Kinský, hence the name of the building.
Baronnes Berta Suttner–Kinský, the first winner of the Nobel Peace Prize in 1905, was born in the Kinský Palace in 1843. At the end of the 19th century, there was a German grammar school in the palace, where Franz Kafka used to study from 1893 to 1901. His father Hermann Kafka had a haberdashery shop in the ground floor of the palace.
In the beginning of the Communist coup in Czechoslovakia in February 1948, the Communist leader Klement Gottwald held his speech from the Kinsky Palace balcony, which started the gloomy era of Communism in Czechoslovakia. The Goltz–Kinský Palace was renovated in 1990s. At the present, there are art exhibitions of the National Gallery in Prague in the front tract, and also the Franz Kafka Bookshop, a museum shop and a cafe.