Tuesday marks exactly 130 years since construction began on the Petřín Lookout Tower, one of the most prominent Prague landmarks. The 64 metre high steel construction, built on the occasion of the Jubilee Exhibition in 1891, was inspired by the Eiffel Tower, and offers one of the best views of the city.
The construction of the Petřín Lookout Tower was initiated in 1889 by members of the Czech Tourist Club, who visited the World Exhibition in Paris and were so impressed by the view from the famous Eiffel Tower, that they decided to create a similar dominant in Prague, says art historian Zdeněk Lukeš:
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Today is the 150th anniversary of the birth of Adolf Loos, a pioneering modernist architect raised in Brno, who left a rich legacy also in Vienna, Prague and beyond. He is perhaps best known for the radical philosophy that “ornament is crime” and multidimensional design of interior spaces, which Loos called simply the ‘Raumplan” .
Adolf Loos, photo: Wikimedia Commons, CC0
Adolf Loos was born in 1870 into a German-speaking family in the Moravian capital of what was then part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. He spent most of his adult life in Vienna, frequenting its grand coffee houses and cabarets when not in his atelier.