Prague will repair two portals, the facade, and the roof of the Clam-Gallas Palace

Prague - The Prague City Hall will have two portals, the façade, and the roof of the Clam-Gallas Palace on the corner of Husova Street and Mariánské Square repaired. The repairs are expected to cost around 63 million crowns according to preliminary estimates. The city will now announce tenders for contractors. This is indicated in a document that Prague councilors will discuss on Monday. The current appearance of the palace dates back to the turn of the 17th and 18th centuries, and the city will pay 344 million crowns for a complete reconstruction. In the future, there should be a restaurant and a wine bar in the palace, as well as exhibition spaces and expos in the representative halls.

The repairs concern two portals on Husova Street, which are in critical condition. "After uncovering the surface structures, completely degraded wooden load-bearing beams were found, both in the ceiling structure and in the lintels of the portals. These defects were partially caused by long-term water infiltration from the façade," the materials state. Fungal pests have appeared in the structure, and the load-bearing beams in the floor, on which the stone columns of the portals stand, have sagged.

The last repairs to the palace's façades and roofs were carried out more than 25 years ago. The façades are in very poor condition, and special attention will be paid to the stone and stucco decorations during their repair. Conversely, the roofs are in good condition. "The condition of the roofs is very good, so only a check of the roofing and the most exposed parts of the roof covering, such as corners, valleys, guttering, and downspouts in copper, will be carried out," the materials state.

The repair of the portals will cost about 16.5 million crowns, and the façades and roofs will cost another approximately 46.4 million.

The current late Baroque appearance of the palace was created by builder Tomáš Haffenecker according to the design of the Viennese court architect Johann Bernard Fischer von Erlach for Count Jan Václav Gallas. According to experts, it is one of the best-preserved noble city palaces in the world.
The construction of a new hall is estimated to cost more than one hundred million crowns, partial repair of the existing hall about ten million, and complete repair over 80 million. The exact amounts will be known once the project is completed. The city can apply for grants once it has the project, including building permits.

It is still unclear when the city leadership will definitively decide on the solution variant. According to the mayor, however, this should not prevent the gradual repair of the existing hall from possibly beginning, which the city took over last year after the councilors' decision. Until then, the hall belonged to a sports association, which offered it to the city because it did not have enough money for operations and potential investments.