Prague Castle - programme quarterly
Autumn 1998
Contens:
The Opinion Poll question is answered by Eda Kriseova
Days of the Origin of Czechoslovakia and Prague Castle
The Defenestration in Prague Castle 380 Years Ago
The Garden On the Bastion
The Bohemian Crown Jewels
Exhibitions:
Anatolian Carpets II.
Josef Lada
The Architect Eva Jiricna
Precious Stones in Gothic Art
Music:
The Coronation Oratio by Jan Dismas Zelenka
The Strings of Autumn
Gardens that are Open to the Public
Rather apart from the most frequently visited parts of Prague Castle, above the Deer Moat and neighbouring on the Archbishop's garden and Hradcany Square, the smallest of the castle gardens may be found, known as On the Bastion. This part of the originally western forecourt formed a section of the castle fortifications, and it was quite newly laid out when the Czechoslovak Republic came into being. This new lay-out was designed by the castle architect, Josip Plecnik.
Plecnik was asked to reconstruct the rather neglected bastion courtyard with a garden, in which the castle administration had last been interested in connection with preparations for the coronation of Francis Joseph I, which never actually came about. Then - in the eighteen-sixties and seventies - a drive was to be made up to the Spanish Hall.
Plecnik's rearrangement, at the end of the nineteen-twenties, respected the older division of the area. He had the front part, nowadays sometimes also called the IVth castle courtyard, paved with pebbles. He had the back part, formerly hidden behind a wall, levelled by raising the terrain and made accessible by semicircular steps. On the upper terrace thus formed he made a garden. Thanks to Plecnik's invention and feeling and respect for tradition, a remarkable garden came into being within the grounds of Prague Castle, that serves well as a link between the Powder Bridge and Hradcany Square and also offers passers-by a pleasant place for a short rest. The bastion court also connects Hradcany Square with the IInd castle courtyard. How well Plecnik succeded in linking the historic compounnd of Prague Castle with the surrounding nature can best be judged by anyone who decides to go down from the well tended Garden on the Bastion into the Upper Deer Moat.
During archaelogical research carried out in Prague Castle remnants of buildings from Romanesque times were found in these places. Fragments of a Romanesque house were found beneath today's bastion court. The Romanesque church of the Virgin Mary, discovered not far away, is considered to be the very oldest Christian sanctuary within Prague Castle (this can now be seen in the basement of the castle picture gallery). The only thing that still recalls the original importance of the area of the Garden on the Bastion as part of the castle fortifications, is the wall of the Premysl tower, hidden under the pergola by the Theresian portal of the Spanish Hall.
The vegetation of the Garden on the Bastion forms a part of its architectonic plan. Plecnik's elegant steps lead from the bastion court to a low terrace, bordered by a row of decorative vases of narrow-leaved dragon trees. Most of the terrace is covered with fine white gravel with several rows of evergreen thuyas. The gravel area along the sides is lined with green belts. A decorative effect is given by grafted grandiflora acacias. Another part of the garden is like a Japanese garden. The perfect lawn is scattered with white stepping stones that lead to a pergola over the medieval bastion, covered with ramblers. Growing here too are several solitary trees, both coniferous and deciduous, such as an oak, a silver fir, a red yew, and also decorative shrubs, of which we may name the scented guelder-rose and the hobble-bush, rock plants, tamarisks, and Julia's Barberry. The garden comes to an end with a path along a granite balustrade with a view ver the Deer Moat. One can then reach the Powder Bridge by crossing Plecnik's footbridge, which is built on arcades. There is a garden restaurant in the corner of the garden over the Deer Moat, just next to the Archbishop's palace.
Recently, especially in connection with the big exhibition of Plecnik's work on Prague Castle in 1996, the garden has been renewed, to make it as close as possible to the architect's original intention.
The construction of an automatic watering system has been of great importance for the Garden on the Bastion. Water from the historic reconstructed castle water mains is now used to spray this garden, as it is in the Southern and Royal Gardens.
PhD. Vera Vavrova
The authoress works in the Prague Castle Archives