The church designed by Josip Plečnik is one of the landmarks of Vinohrady

photo: Ester Havlová

Prague - The Slovenian architect Josip Plečnik is primarily known in the Czech Republic as the author of the modifications to Prague Castle during the tenure of the first Czechoslovak president Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk. However, he also adorned the face of the capital with another significant building - the Church of the Most Sacred Heart of Our Lord in Jiří z Poděbrady Square, which has become a dominant feature of Vinohrady and part of the panorama of Prague. The sanctuary, which began construction on August 19, 1929, and was consecrated in May 1932, is now a national cultural monument.

The construction of the new Vinohrady church began to be prepared even before World War I, "The Society for the Construction of the Second Temple of the Lord in the Royal Vinohrady" was established in March 1914, and the competition was announced in the first post-war year. At that time, the already respected architect did not participate in the competition, but his students from the Academy of Art, Architecture, and Design, where Plečnik lectured from 1911 to 1921, succeeded in it. Later, the jury and reportedly even the participants themselves invited him to begin working on the church design himself.

Plečnik completed it in 1927, having significantly altered his original vision due to a lack of funds, which anticipated generous development of the area with additional buildings including a school, residential houses, or an arch. Plečnik created three projects in total, and he did so without compensation. In the final design, he reduced the anticipated costs to about a third. The foundation for financing the construction of the Church of the Most Sacred Heart of Our Lord became the so-called Beptovská Foundation. It managed the property (mostly farmland) of the wealthy New Town councilor Karel Leopold Bepta, who donated it for church purposes.

In addition to this main source of funds, the entire parish contributed through many collections, donations, and a lottery. The total costs for construction at the time reached approximately 4.8 million crowns. The foundation stone was laid on October 28, 1928, on the tenth anniversary of the founding of the Czechoslovak Republic. By 1932, a monumental postmodern hall building with a wide tower partially clad in copper and partially white plastered rose in the square. In the design of the church, Plečnik drew inspiration from early Christian Mediterranean architecture. The temple was consecrated by Prague Archbishop Cardinal Karel Kašpar, who also blessed the six bells in the tower.

The rectangular hall measures 26 by 38 meters and is 14 meters high. The main tower is topped with a three-meter copper dome with a four-meter-high cross and reaches a height of 42 meters. The tower has a large round window with a diameter of 7.6 meters, which also serves as a clock. In the basement, there is a spacious chapel with a barrel vault, which contemporary architects consider to be Plečnik’s most spiritual space. The interior of the church, which was largely created after the consecration, is as original as the exterior. It was designed by Plečnik himself, and after his return to his native Ljubljana, the work was taken over by the architect's successor, Otto Rothmayer.

The sculptural decoration is the work of Damián Pešan, the Stations of the Cross were painted by František Doubek, and the colorful decoration of the windows featuring the motif of the Sacred Heart was designed by Karel Svolinský. The organs were made by the Kutná Hora company Mölzer, and the bells were cast by the Brno workshop of Rudolf Manoušek. Plečnik also designed the modifications to the square. However, this was never completed, and the realized alterations largely did not survive the later construction of underground shelters and the metro station, unlike the church, which is rightly considered the most significant domestic sacral building of the 20th century.

A native of Ljubljana (1872 to 1957), Plečnik left a much greater mark in Prague; in the Czech environment, he is best known for his role as the castle architect during the presidency of Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk. Plečnik came to Prague to teach architecture before World War I as a student of Vienna professor Otto Wagner, and he earned a good reputation. After the republic was established, Plečnik's task became to fulfill Masaryk's requirement to "transform the monarchist castle into a democratic castle."

Plečnik got along very well with the president-liberator; Masaryk had complete confidence in him and entrusted him not only with the neglected Prague Castle modifications but also with his favorite residence in Lány. At the castle, Plečnik began sensitive changes to the South Gardens at the very beginning of the 1920s, recommended to him by the Society of Fine Artists Mánes. The modest but simultaneously noble solution respecting the genius loci opened the way for Plečnik to further commissions for the presidential office, for which he never accepted a fee. He claimed that the task itself represented the greatest honor for him.

At Masaryk's suggestion, Plečnik then became the official castle architect. According to his plans, which during Plečnik's stays in Ljubljana were carried out by the architect's student Otto Rothmayer, the garden Na Baště was modified, as well as three of the four castle courtyards; he also designed Masaryk's lookout with the vineyard on the northern edge of Jelení příkop. He also designed the interior of the Column Hall in the northern wing of the castle, President Masaryk's apartment in the New Royal Palace, and the modifications of the president's country residence at the castle in Lány.

Plečnik's Prague mission ended in the mid-1930s when he increasingly became the target of nationalistic attacks. Newspapers, for example, published articles about "the foreigner destroying the sacred residence of Czech kings," and Plečnik, whose deteriorating health meant President Masaryk could no longer provide the needed support, ultimately remained at home in Ljubljana. The unsightly end of his Prague tenure somewhat resembles his departure from Vienna to Prague a quarter of a century earlier.

There, shortly before the outbreak of World War I, Plečnik encountered criticism with his Church of the Holy Spirit in Ottakring. The reinforced concrete structure built between 1908 and 1913 does not disguise the material used, and it was not well received by Franz Joseph I, who refused to attend the consecration of the church. In addition to Vinohrady in Prague, Josip Plečnik later designed several other Catholic sacred buildings, each of which is different, but they all share one thing: they are original and cannot be overlooked.

In the second half of the 1920s, the Church of St. Francis of Assisi was built in Ljubljana, for which Plečnik designed a nearly column-free square nave. In 1932, the Franciscan Church of St. Anthony of Padua was consecrated in Belgrade, where the architect drew inspiration from ancient rotundas and complemented it with a cylindrical tower. For a smaller St. Michael's Church on the marshlands of Ljubljana (consecrated in 1939), he even designed a transept. Plečnik designed his last church for a small parish in Ponikve in northwestern Slovenia, which was completed a year after his death.