day 4 -- Another Openin', Another (gallery) Show!

It started out slowly... couldn't crow-bar my way out of bed, so the sightseeing got started a little later than planned, but I still tried to fit in as much as possible. I headed out over the Jiraskuv bridge (the one right outside our apartment here), and then turned north in the Mala Strana (or Lesser Town). I decided to do a small photographic experiment and took pictures of the first 10 doors I came across on my trek... here are a few highlights...

betcha can't find any of THESE at Home Depot!

they're all between 8 and a half and 10 feet tall... and when you think about it... a normal door in an American home is typically not over 7 feet. Ya gotta hand it to the Europeans... they know how to make an entrance!

I could easily take a thousand such pictures here in Prague, but I will refrain as best I can.... having said that I did have one further architectural thought today.... even in the nicer, posh-er areas of Prague there's a degree of... decrepitude that's both incredibly aesthetically pleasing and obviously so completely overlooked. The a look at this first pic of a (for Prague) non-descript residence building at the corner of Nabrezi and Vitezna, just off the Legii Bridge...

note the Italianate details-- the dentil mouldings, and pediments with laurel wreaths, the carefully cut limestone blocks and the plaster columns showing the tell-tale tinge of weathering to them. It's truly a lovely set of proportions, not amazing, but aesthetically very pleasing and beautifully detailed.... now look at what this same building looks like on the GROUND level at the street....

note the  corroded plaster, graffiti, the lack of upkeep of the eye-level facade of the building.. . there's a dichotomy here that i think is rather fascinating. both the beauty of the dessication, and the juxtaposition of architectural beauty above with the trashiness of every-day wear-and-tear on these gorgeous buildings. Could the building owners do a better job of cleaning up and repairing? of course, but they don't... not because they don't care, and not JUST because they know it'll simply fall back into the disrepair, but the fact is that the contrast of beauty above to crumbling below GIVES IT CHARACTER... and Prague is FULL of that...

off my soap-box, and on to the rest of the morning's outing...

I came pretty quickly to a spot I'd been hoping to find... The Franz Kafka Museum... its' small, it's out of the way, being a bit of a fan, I really wanted to see this one, and it was worth it... it fell somewhere decidedly between kitch and informative... The use of moderately eerie sounds was at times,  surprisingly effective, and almost hokey at others. and without being preachy, or overly-biographical, it walked a fine, but interesting line between the two. I have to admit that I knew little of his life, but I now think I might need to check out a biography of him after I'm home... they interspersed bits of his life and personal history with the world evoked by hie stories... my favorite (and the only one that photographed particularly well) is the descent from the second to main floor... the "descent into madness"...lol.

having said that the fountain outside was also particularly amusing...

they actively encourage you to wash you hands in the ...um... erectile water spouts.

anyhow... I continued up toward the Castle, up the rather vertigo-inducing Nerudova Street and took a  brief break in Loreto Square... here are pic looking up Nerudova and equally DOWN it...

trust me, it's even steeper than it looks.

But it's also dotted with souvenir  shops, artist's shops and what must be my new favorite store ever anywhere... the Loutka Puppet store, where you can walk into the workshop at back as they're carving the wooden bodies for marionettes.  the tiny store even has its' own working theatre so that puppets can be properly tested. I so wanted to buy one of the hand-carved ones, but even the VERY small simple ones (about 12" high), start at 2000Ckr (about $125). they go up steeply from there.



I continued up to the Prague Castle Square, whose outer courtyard has the most amazing view down over the terracotta tiled roofs of Prague... I know this picture can't really do it justice, but trust me, it's breathtaking.... and not just because of the climb...




The castle grounds are really gigantic and the gate is duly splendid with armed guards flanking the entrance.

You go thru the main gate and then through another archway, that has a shortened hallway that puts you out steps from the front of this...

the facade of St. Vitus Cathedral... it's so big, so massive, and SO close to this gantry that it's impossible to get a full shot of the facade. the gantry really does serve a focal purpose in this... though massive and huge in ANY way you look at it, St. Vitus seems EVEN BIGGER after coming thru a small opening... very smart designers involved in planning this back in the 13th century...

The interior is gorgeously Gothic with splendid stained glass and towering vaulted arches...

truly magnificent! There are many other buildings in the compound, including the old Royal palace, and several nobleman's residencies which have also been turned in to galleries and museums.  In many ways, my travels for today went from the profane (Kafka) to the sublime. I had planned to do more, but as I'd gotten a late start and needed to prep for the gala opening, I decided to walk back thru Old Town and get ready for the party this evening.

The Prague Quadrennial opened with a reception at 5pm, and it was stunning. The exhibits were great, we got to talk with a LOT of fun people. and it started everything off rather nicely. My post tomorrow will include pix of many of the other exhibits, both student and national. it's already 1:30am and I have a workshop starting at 9am. goodnight!


I then headed back down the hill from the castle