Hlávkův bridge was built 100 years ago due to the Holesovice slaughterhouse

Prague - At the beginning of the 20th century, still under Austria-Hungary, three new bridges were built in Prague across the Vltava River: in 1902, the wooden Libeň Bridge after the incorporation of Libeň into Prague, in 1908, as a result of the demolition of the former Jewish Town, the Čech Bridge, and in 1912, due to the Holesovice slaughterhouses, the Hlávka Bridge. However, a wooden bridge, known as the bridge over the island of Velké Benátky (the older name is Štvanice), had already stood at its site for several years. The thirteenth bridge over the Vltava from the south, the reinforced concrete road and tram Hlávka Bridge, which was not renamed like many other Prague bridges, was opened 100 years ago on February 6, 1912.
Currently, there are 19 bridges over the Vltava in Prague, including 12 road bridges, four railway bridges, two pedestrian bridges, and one tram bridge. The most recent, the nineteenth Prague bridge over the Vltava, the Lochkov Bridge on the Prague ring road R1, was opened on September 20, 2010. Before that, for a long time (since July 1984), the last bridge over the Vltava was the Troja footbridge.
The bridge named after the Czech architect and patron Josef Hlávka (1831-1908) owes its existence to the establishment of slaughterhouses in 1895 in Holešovice. The central Prague slaughterhouses (since 1983 the Holešovice Market) were established here after regulations that prohibited livestock slaughter within the inner city. The new bridge was intended to facilitate the transport of livestock to the slaughterhouses.
The Hlávka Bridge, now part of the North-South Magistrale, connects Florenc and Holešovice via the Štvanice island. In the 19th century, the only access to this island was the footbridge from Karlín. In 1898, Prague purchased the island from a private owner and subsequently had a temporary wooden bridge built on it.
The Hlávka Bridge, which replaced this wooden bridge, was constructed in two phases between 1909 and 1912. The new bridge, which is 16.8 meters wide, including sidewalks, and 297.4 meters long, spans two arms of the Vltava River and the Štvanice island with the help of seven arches (three over the Vltava, four over the Štvanice).
The shorter part of the bridge from Těšnov to the island was built according to the design of Jiří Soukup from steel, with architectural collaboration on this part of the bridge provided by Mečislav Petrů. The second, longer part of the bridge, partially above the Štvanice island and over the river, was made of concrete. This section of the bridge was designed by František Mencel and architect Pavel Janák. The structurally different parts were the result of a compromise between advocates of steel bridge construction and those who favored modern concrete constructions.
Great attention was paid to the artistic decoration of the new bridge. Above the heads of the island's pillars are 2.65-meter-high reliefs, created by the students of Josef Václav Myslbek: on the water side, the sculptor Bohumil Kafka and on the opposite side, Ladislav Kofránek. The medallions suspended in the corners of the main arch represent 12 portraits of the city council officials who were involved in the construction of the bridge. Their authors are sculptors Otto Gutfreund and Josef Mařatka. However, the artistic dominance includes large-scale sculptures by sculptor Jan Štursa, titled "Work" and "Humanity", located at the beginning of the bridge on the Holešovice side.
In 1958-1962, the bridge was widened to double its size to accommodate the planned route of the magistrale. On this occasion, the steel part of the bridge structure between the Štvanice island and Těšnov was replaced by a reinforced concrete structure. The function of tram transportation was preserved.