The 11th edition of the popular architecture festival Open House Prague is returning to Prague Castle.

In the South Gardens, visitors will have a rare opportunity to explore the Hartig Garden and the Plečnik Pavilion, which are usually closed to the public.

Hartig Garden
The South Gardens of Prague Castle are made up of the Paradise Garden, the Garden on the Ramparts, and the smallest – Hartig Garden, which was added to the others only in the 1960s. It originally belonged to the Hartig Palace, which was built in 1670 by Isabella Švihovská of Salm. Both the garden and the palace are named after Count Ludvík Josef of Hartig, who built a Baroque-style music pavilion where he held concerts. The current appearance of the garden is the result of modifications designed by architects Adolf Benš and Richard Podzemný. The façade of the pavilion has also undergone various modifications and now has a uniform beige colour. The garden consists of two terraces connected by a staircase. There are no grassy areas, but the perimeter walls are covered in ivy. The upper part of the garden is decorated with five sculptures by Antonín Braun – four placed along the wall and one, a statue of the god Dionysus, placed directly inside the music pavilion. Currently, all the statues are in storage awaiting restoration. In the lower part of the garden, we can find a deeper niche with a disused fountain in the centre, which once featured a statue of a woman made of pink marble. The entrance to the garden leads through the Garden on the Ramparts, but the Hartig Garden itself is normally closed to the public.

Plečnik Pavilion
In 1920, at the invitation of President Masaryk, Slovenian architect Jože Plečnik became the official architect of Prague Castle, a position he held until the mid-1930s. In addition to his redesigns of the 1st and 3rd courtyards, he also revitalized the Garden on the Ramparts, which stretches along the Castle’s southern façade from the Paradise Garden to Opyš. The backbone of the garden is the promenade, which the architect enriched with several stops, including the famous Plečnik Lookout, with a breathtaking view of Prague, under which is the winter garden area – Plečnik Pavilion. The viewpoint is conceived as an extension of an imaginary axis leading from the Bull Staircase (or the 3rd Courtyard) to the towers of St. Nicolas Church in Malá Strana. On the right edge of the viewpoint (as seen from the Castle), Plečnik placed a pyramid, one of the typical motifs of his work. Currently, the pavilion is used as a gallery space.

Entry is from the South Gardens via the Plečnik Lookout.

www.openhousepraha.cz