Photo: Elena Horálková, Radio Prague International
Located just off Wenceslas Square, the Lucerna Palace is an iconic building. Its rooftop terraces and passages are unique even for the historic centre of Prague. Interestingly, the palace was originally planned to be one storey higher and have an ice rink instead of its main concert hall.
The spiritual father of the Lucerna Palace was engineer, architect, and builder Vácslav Havel, grandfather of the late Czech president Václav Havel. Lucerna means lantern in Czech, and it is not known for certain why Havel chose it as the name for his project. Many locals believe that it comes from the glass façade of a nearby building on the corner of Wenceslas Square. However, that building is not part of Lucerna Palace, explains Petr Hájek, an architect who worked on the reconstruction of Lucerna’s terraces.
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Authors: Vojtěch Pohanka, Zdeňka Kuchyňová