House at the Minute

The photograph depicts the reconstruction of the originally late Gothic house no 3/I, the so-called House at the Minute (Dům u Minuty), sometimes also called At the White Lion (U Bílého lva) after the sculpture on its corner. The name of the house, “At the Minute”, supposedly refers to the tobacconist’s shop which used to be located there in the 19th century (the cigarette lasted only a moment, a minute).http://www.kralovskacesta.cz/cs/prohlidka/objekty/u-minuty-u-bileho-iva.html (accessed 13 June 2017). As a child, Franz Kafka lived there with his parents in 1889–1896. Subsequently, the house was connected to the complex of buildings making up the Old Town Hall.PV [Pavel Vlček], čp. 3/I, in: Pavel Vlček a kol., Umělecké památky Prahy. Staré Město, Josefov, Academia, Praha, 1996, p. 149.

During the war a column in the arcade and the house sign were destroyed, and sgraffito work on the facade was damaged as well.Oldřich Mahler, Po stopách květnového povstání v Praze, in: Staletá Praha XIX, Praha bojující, 1989, p. 19. It is clear from the picture that Sudek took it when the reconstruction work was quite advanced. Most of the Mannerist sgraffitos from the period before 1615, covering the area of two facades on the square, were preserved. The restoration work, lasting till 1940, revealed original painted Renaissance beams, among other things.PV [Pavel Vlček], čp. 3/I, in: Pavel Vlček a kol., Umělecké památky Prahy. Staré Město, Josefov, Academia, Praha, 1996, pp. 149–150.