Franz Kafka Museum

Moving north along the coasts of River Vltava, after you cross Charles Bridge and right after the northern tip of Kampa Island is the Franz Kafka Museum dedicated to the most renowned son of the city and one of the most important writers of the 20th century. The Franz Kafka Museum is housed in the converted 18th-century Hergetová cihelná (brickworks) in one of the most advantageous locations of the city.

Franz Kafka was born in Prague on July of 1883. He wad buried in New Jewish Cemetery on June of 1924. The exhibition The City of K. Franz Kafka and Prague first opened in 1999 in Barcelona.

From 2002 to 2003, it was on display at the Jewish Museum in New York until in 2005 it was finally installed at its present space in the Herget Brickworks (Hergetová cihelna). In the first section of the exhibition “The Existential space” the visitor takes an extensive look on how the city affected the writer, how it shaped his life.

In the 2nd part called “Imaginary Topography” the visitor is introduced to Kafka’s imaginary topography in juxtaposition to the real places that gave birth to the writer’s fictional literary world. All of Kafka’s first editions, photographs and drawings, manuscripts and diaries are displayed with the help of modern technology and 3-D installations in the most contemporary way possible.

At the courtyard a provocative fountain created by artist David Cerny consists of two urinating men standing opposite one another above a lake in the shape of the Czech Republic. An electronic device turns their hips and raises their penises in a way that the flow of water traces the letters of several quotes on the water’s surface.