Prašná brána

Back to the Old Town Square and its south-east corner, where Celetná Street, one of the oldest and most historic roads in Prague connects the Old Town square with the Prašná brána (Powder Tower), the Republic Square (Námestí Republiky) and  Municipal House (Obecní düm) on its eastern end. Part of the Royal Route that started from Vyšehrad castle, passed through Celetná Street and the Old Town Square, over to Karlova Street , across Charles Bridge up to Prague Castle, where the coronation would take place in the Cathedral of St Vitus.

The street that took its name from the buns and rolls (calty) that were baked here in the Early Middle Ages is lined with historic houses that have followed the change of the architectural style of the city, from Romanesque (the basements of almost every house on the street are proof of that), to Gothic and then Baroque and Classicist styles. However the most famous of them doesn’t fall to any of those categories.

The House Of The Black Madonna at No. 34 is admired for its Cubist Architecture and is one of the earliest examples of that style in Europe, built in 1912. It houses a branch of the Czech Museum of Fine Arts with a permanent exhibition on Czech Cubism and the only Cubist café in the world, the Grand Café Orient.

At No3, The House Of the Three Kings is where Franz Kafka lived in his youth, between 1896 and 1907 while the house at No27 used to be the official church of Knights Templar until the Order was abolished in 1312. After that the members used to meet secretly in the basement of the house. A stone altar of the order was discover there later. It was later turned into a hospital until in 1784 it finally became a dwelling house.

At the eastern end of the street we can easily discern from far away the 65 meters tall Gothic Prašná brána or Powder Tower. The tower was built in the place of a dilapidated city gate named Mountain Gate of the early 13th century, that brought into town one of the main roads coming from Eastern Bohemia and the city of Kutná Hora.

The construction began during the reign of King Vladislav II in 1475, based to a great extent on the pattern followed by Peter Parler for the Old Town Bridge Tower, built a century earlier. It was meant to serve as an impressive entrance-gate to the city rather than a defensive tower like the one on the Bridge. However after the King’s relocation from palace in the Old Town(now the Municipal House) to the Castle in 1485 due to riots, the tower building stopped.

It was only in 1592 that the construction re-commenced and a new entrance was built together with the spiral staircase. In the late 17th century the name of the tower changed from New Tower that had been since then to Powder Tower because of its use as a gun-powder storage place. The tower had stopped being used by the kings in their ceremony parade while in 1757, in the Battle of Prague, it would suffer severe damage by the Prussian army.

Finally the monument would be restored between 1875 & 1886 when it acquired its present appearance. The coronation ceremonies had started passing through the gate once more a few years earlier. Today a climb up its 144 steps can give a unique view of the Old Town from its 44 meters high viewing platform.