Drawing trip to Prague

At the beginning of October, I made my annual sketching trip with my 3 dear friends, also architects (a.k.a TripleA :). I’m late with my statement here on urbansketchers – sorry for that.

So here’s a panoramic view of Prague with the extensive Prague castle, the largest castle area in the world and seat of the presdient of the Czech Republic, with St. Veit’s cathedral (chrám sv. Víta) on top. A very classic sketching spot.

Again, it was a journey through the history of architecture, mainly Gothic, Baroq and Art Nouveau. But there’s also the architectural style of cubism that is only existing in and around Prague (10 buildings or so). Here’s one example, the ‘House of the Black Madonna’, built by Josef Gocar in 1911.

We were very lucky with the weather – no raindrop in five days. We went with the tram a little bit into the outskirts in order to see Adolf Loos’ Villa Müller from 1930 – a unique building with an extraordinary interior design and a great view over the city from the typical roof terrace. The house is an important object for the period of modernism in Europe for non-ornamentic architecture, although, today, the interior seems quite decorated.

Prague just pays off so much! For example, you can draw for hours on the main square (Staromestska Namesti) with the city hall, some churches and all these delicate facades of residential houses from the periods of art nouveau and promoterism. I have drawn St. Nicholas church from two different point of views.

by Florian Afflerbach