Prague's architecture styles explained

In some Prague streets you can walk past eight centuries of building in ten minutes, and nobody bulldozed anything to make room. The historic centre went onto UNESCO's World Heritage list in 1992. Here is a field guide.

Romanesque, 10th to 12th centuries

Round arches, thick walls, small windows. The best example is St George's Basilica at Prague Castle, founded in the tenth century and rebuilt after a fire in the twelfth. Another is the Rotunda of St Martin at Vyšehrad, a small round church. Romanesque survives below ground, too: many Old Town houses sit on Romanesque cellars.

Gothic, 13th to 15th centuries

Pointed arches, ribbed vaults, tall windows and flying buttresses. Under Charles IV, who became Holy Roman Emperor in 1355, Prague grew into a major capital. St Vitus Cathedral was begun in 1344 and the Charles Bridge founded in 1357. The Old Town Bridge Tower and the Church of Our Lady before Týn belong to the same world. See our Charles Bridge guide.

Renaissance, 16th century

Calmer, more symmetrical, with Italian influence. Queen Anne's Summer Palace (Belvedere) in the Castle gardens is the textbook example. Many Renaissance houses in Malá Strana and the Old Town have sgraffito, decoration scratched into plaster, as at the Schwarzenberg Palace.

Baroque, 17th and 18th centuries

After the Battle of White Mountain in 1620 the Habsburgs reshaped Bohemia, and Baroque became the style of the Counter-Reformation. Look for curved façades, dramatic statues and gilded interiors. The Church of St Nicholas in Malá Strana, by the Dientzenhofers, is a high point, and the Clementinum is a vast Baroque complex. Many of the saints on Charles Bridge are Baroque too.

Neoclassical, late 18th century

The Estates Theatre (1783) is the key example, covered in our Estates Theatre guide. Clean lines, columns, a quiet façade.

The 19th-century revivals

The national revival of the 1800s brought neo-Renaissance and neo-Gothic buildings. The National Theatre, the Rudolfinum and the National Museum are the grand ones. See the guides to the National Museum and the National Theatre.

Art Nouveau, around 1900

Curves, flowers, mosaics, ironwork. The Municipal House is the showpiece, and our walking guide gives you a route.

Cubism, 1910 to 1914

A Czech speciality: angular façades modelled on Cubist painting. Read about it in our Cubist architecture guide.

Functionalism, 1920s and 1930s

Clean white boxes, flat roofs, large windows. The Veletržní Palace, completed in 1928, is a big functionalist building, and Villa Müller, designed by Adolf Loos, is a well-known villa of the period. The style suits First Republic Prague, a young state looking forward.

Communist-era and modern

State-built housing estates, large public buildings and the Žižkov television tower; see our guide to Brutalism and communist-era architecture. Since 1989, new building has mixed glass offices with careful reconstruction. The Dancing House on the embankment, designed by Vlado Milunić and Frank Gehry and completed in 1996, is the best-known example.

Spotting a style

Round arches: Romanesque. Pointed arches: Gothic. Symmetry and Italian proportion: Renaissance. Swirling curves and drama: Baroque. Floral curves: Art Nouveau. Angles and prisms: Cubism. Plain white boxes: Functionalism. Concrete slabs: late communist.

Do this today

Walk from Charles Bridge to Prague Castle and try to name three styles on the way. For a fuller plan, see our three days in Prague itinerary.