Mayor’s hall

The most impressive is the decoration of the centrally-located Mayor’s Hall, created by Alphonse Mucha, an internationally renowned representative of Art Nouveau painting, who gained acclaim in Paris in the 1890s thanks to his posters and illustrations. He started working on the Mayor’s Hall upon his return from Paris and the United States in 1910. Mucha’s pathetic appeal to national consciousness in Mayor’s Hall was also the last important interior in the Art Nouveau decorative style. For one last time, the artist undertook the task of incorporating all details in a homogeneous interior, from murals, through stained glass windows and furniture, to the richly embroidered drapes and metal fittings. The dominating colours, orange, black and blue, endow this room with a feeling of celebratory essence as well as emotional warmth. The central painting in the hall is a circular ceiling fresco called The Slavic Concord, from which eight pendentives stretch down featuring civic virtues personified by Czech history figures.

Photo Ivan Král