VII. Pražské suburb | mukolin.cz

During today´s walk we will wander through Pražské suburb because also this town district (even though it is located outside the walls of original medieval Kolín) has its charm.

We will start in the Square of Republic which is currently used as a significant junction of town bus transport. In past its area was much smaller, there used to be a block of houses with a well-known inn “U města Prahyʺ and adjacent house called "U zlatého křížeʺ which used to be a blacksmith´s shop. The whole block of houses was demolished in connection with building a department store (present-day Billa).

On the corner of Kmochova and Tyršova street there used to be a birth house of writer Josef Svatopluk Machar who is commemorated with a memorial plaque. In this area we can also find several buildings designed by the famous architect Jaroslav Fragner. The first example is the so-called Budil´s villa which was built for engineer Budil at the end of 1920s. Another example of Fragner´s work is the former car showroom Auto-Tatra (current Mountfield shop) from 1932. Directly opposite this place we can find a shopping zone with hypermarkets Tesco and OBI. In 1920s a factory producing American Heating stoves was established here, however, the area was later used by the army which built the barracks here. Army buildings were mostly demolished or some of the houses were rebuilt into flats for TPCA car factory employees. At the end of our walk I would like to mention the dominant point of Pražské suburb – the water tower. This 42 metres high tower comes from 1930; the authors were J. V. Hráský and F. Janda. Apart from the purposeful aspect the authors also focused on design. An impressive staircase and a fountain were built and the surroundings were changed into a park with a children playground. And that is all for today, next time we will visit another part of our royal town.