Architect, businessman, patron, monument preservationist Josef Hlávka: Czech patriot and loyal Austro-Hungarian citizen
Abstract
The lecture will introduce the personality of Josef Hlávka, Czech architect, construction entrepreneur, politician, patron of Czech science and art, and preservationist Josef Hlávka. Hlávka, who bequeathed all his property to the Czech nation, was conservatively founded, and for that reason he was a loyal Austro-Hungarian citizen and a loyal subject of the Austro-Hungarian emperor.
Hlávka's buildings can be admired not only in Prague, but especially in Vienna and Chernivtsi. He made a permanent mark in the history of Czech culture by founding the Josef, Marie and Zdeňka Hlávka's Endowment, by founding the Emperor Franz Josef Czech Academy for Sciences, Letters and Arts, the Institute of National Economics and the Hlávka's dormitories for Czech students.
No less important was his activity in the field of monuments, it is thanks to him that in Prague we can admire, for example, the monument of St. Wenceslas in Wenceslas Square, the Slavín tomb in Vyšehrad and the Charles Bridge, which was seriously damaged in a flood in 1890 and the Prague municipality considered demolishing it; Hlávka proposed a way to repair it and financed this repair himself.