House in the Upper Corner of Wenceslas Square

In the evening on 5 May 1945, the commander of arms SS Carl Friedrich von Pückler-Burghaus issued an order to use the German air force against the Prague insurgents.See Michal Plavec – Filip Vojtášek, Bomby na Květnou neděli. Letecká válka nad Prahou a okolím v březnu až květnu 1945, Svět křídel, Cheb, 2012, pp. 281–293. It started the following day and one of the main targets was the radio building on Vinohradská Street, the area of Wenceslas Square, and the historical centre of the city on the right river bank. Explosive and incendiary bombs were supposed to be used. The day after, on 7 May, most of the attacks came from the pilots of the IIIrd unit of Schlachtgeschwader 77. One of the Luftwaffe pilots, Lieutenant Willi Stampfl, said that when the radio building could not be found (the building was hit during other air raids, nevertheless) they decided to drop the bombs on “some corner house on Wenceslas Square”. Michal Plavec (ed.), Praha 1945 očima fotografa. Josef Voříšek (1902–1980), Svět křídel, Cheb, 2013, p. 77; Michal Plavec – Filip Vojtášek, Bomby na Květnou neděli. Letecká válka nad Prahou a okolím v březnu až květnu 1945, Svět křídel, Cheb, 2012, s. 293. Srov. Jiří Padevět, Průvodce protektorátní Prahou. Místa – události – lidé, Academia, Praha, 2013, p. 306. It was probably the house on the corner of the square and Washington's Street (known as Weber Street at the time), severely damaged by a bomb dropped in the early evening.Michal Plavec – Filip Vojtášek, Bomby na Květnou neděli. Letecká válka nad Prahou a okolím v březnu až květnu 1945, Svět křídel, Cheb, 2012, pp. 292-293. This bombing caused damage to other buildings on Wenceslas Square as well, for example the department store Prokop a Čáp (no. 804/II). Bad weather made other air raids by the Luftwaffe more difficult during the rest of the May Uprising.Michal Plavec – Filip Vojtášek – Peter Kaššák, Praha v plamenech. Nálety na hlavní město za druhé světové války, Svět křídel, Cheb, 2008, p. 411.

The building destroyed by bombing had stood there since the 1880s. The street plan in the area was outlined after the clearance of the Baroque fortifications of New Town. The house had four storeys with a fifth one set back.JIM [Jiřina Muková], čp. 812/II, in: Růžena Baťková a kol., Umělecké památky Prahy. Nové Město, Vyšehrad, Vinohrady, Academia, Praha, 1998, p. 456. Its distinctive tower competed with the National Museum building.http://www.zastarouprahu.cz/base/vestniky/pdf/vestnik-2013-2.pdf, p. 17. (accessed 14 June 2017). A building with a department store designed by Max Gronwaldt and Jiří Chvatlina was built on the site after the war, between 1954–1957, originally called Pramen, later known as the House of Food (Dům potravin). After the Velvet Revolution, a branch of the Bílá Labuť department store was located there. Currently, the building is used as a hotel.Jan E. Svoboda – Jindřich Noll – Vladislav Skala, Praha 1945–2003. Kapitoly z poválečné a současné architektury, Libri, Praha, 2006, pp. 62–63, 325; Eliška Varyšová, „Nástavba Domu potravin soupeří s Národním muzeem“, in: Věstník klubu za Starou Prahu XLIII. (XIV.), č. 2/2013, pp. 16–20.

Like most of the photographers of the time (e.g. Antonín Alexander from the Monument Board), Josef Sudek took a picture of the building with a monumental view from the ramp of the National Museum, with a sculpture of Bohemia and allegorical figures of the rivers Labe and Vltava lying at its foot; the figures are works by the sculptor Antonín Wagner (1885–1890).