Schier's House

The house on the corner of Old Town Square and Pařížská Street, across from St Nicholas Church, known as Schier's House, was built in 1896–1897. A Baroque house with a facade in the style of Dientzenhofer (formerly no. 934/I), and the palace of the Old Town hetman, Rudolf of Lisov (Lissau), built by Jan Santini-Aichl stood on this site until the turn of the 20th century. Both buildings were among the first victims of the urban renewal of Old Town. In 1895 the building of an apartment house for the chamber councillor Franz Schier was begun on the site. It was built by Otakar Materna after a design by the architect Rudolf Kříženecký, using decorative elements from the original houses.RŠ [Rostislav Švácha], čp. 934/I, in: Pavel Vlček a kol., Umělecké památky Prahy. Staré Město, Josefov, Academia, Praha, 1996, pp. 505–506. The art historian Rostislav Švácha commented on the building as follows: “The architect Kříženecký played a role here to mask the goal of the commercial interests of the investor to get the highest profit out of the rentable area in the new building. Kříženecký approached his rather decorative task with an almost scientific precision in the repetition of the Baroque details.” RŠ [Rostislav Švácha], čp. 934/I, in: Pavel Vlček a kol., Umělecké památky Prahy. Staré Město, Josefov, Academia, Praha, 1996, p. 505.

Mostly only the fifth floor and the corner pinnacle were affected during the May Uprising. The pinnacle was later removed, as well as the large gable with the motif of Fortune on the side of Old Town Square, and the house was lowered by one storey to give more prominence to the neighbouring church. In 1946–1949 it was reconstructed by the architects Jaroslav Stránský and Karel Storch (the construction work was overseen by Bohumil Hübschman).RŠ [Rostislav Švácha], čp. 934/I, in: Pavel Vlček a kol., Umělecké památky Prahy. Staré Město, Josefov, Academia, Praha, 1996, p. 505; Jan E. Svoboda – Jindřich Noll – Vladislav Skala, Praha 1945–2003. Kapitoly z poválečné a současné architektury, Libri, Praha, 2006, p. 24. The house lost its stylish roof, attics and gables, which have never been restored.Kateřina Bečková, Zmizelá Praha. Dodatky I. Historický střed města, Paseka, Praha–Litomyšl, 2003, Fig. 3. Sudek captured the house in the a between the then still existing northeastern wing of the town hall and St Nicholas Church.