The Park behind the Museum

The initial proposal for the comprehensive park landscaping around the museum building dates back to 1907. While undergoing minor adjustments until 1913, the fundamental concept remained consistent: the courtyard would feature a regular, rectangular court of honor encompassed by irregular plantings of trees, shrubs, and flower beds.
 

Between 1902 and around 1910, Jan Kotěra relied on his colleague and collaborator František Thomayer for garden and park arrangements. Thomayer was also intended to contribute to the park landscaping around the museum. However, in 1912, progressive paralysis halted Thomayer’s further involvement. A letter from Jan Kotěra to the museum curator in April 1912 mentioned the need for a gardener to specify shrub species, acknowledging Thomayer’s unavailability due to illness. Although Thomayer’s participation in the 1907–1908 drafts is not confirmed, it is likely that he played a role in the initial outline.
 

In the fundamental outlines evident on the 1907 plan, it is undoubtedly a collaborative effort, stemming from Kotěra’s consultations with Thomayer. In subsequent phases, according to Kotěra, Thomayer was unable to contribute to the refinement work due to his advanced illness. In the 1907 plan, the basic motif of the museum site’s landscaping was the rectangular court of honor, outlined in the pentagonal formation of the site and surrounded by shaped shrubbery cordons. Originally intended to be elevated, this feature seemingly remained at ground level during realization. A rising circular bed, initially planted with annuals and later low shrubs, was proposed at the southern sharp corner of the site. Originally flanked by two low spruce trees on each side at the connection to the end of the site, these trees were soon removed. Beyond the court of honor, two irregular beds in the grassed area in the southern and eastern parts were bordered by low shrubs, which eventually grew into a lower continuous cordon, possibly boxwood. At the southern edge of the court of honor, two trees remaining from the site’s previous fort use persisted until about the early 1920s but were later felled during the 1920s.
 

By the late 1920s, as the landscaping reached the apparent level of the original design and the surroundings of the museum building were diligently maintained, the area in front of the English Courts became densely overgrown with unshaped shrubs. The cordon enclosing the court of honor transformed into more of a hedge, standing approximately a meter high. The inner grassed area of the court of honor featured irregular edging, possibly with juniper bushes and taller yews. The irregular beds outside the court of honor, except for the south circular one, were also planted with unidentified lower shrubs. The regular planting of colorful annuals persisted only in the circular bed at the southern end. The northern edge of the site was adorned with mature sunflowers. The bed in the southern part near the access road to the court of honor was planted with beech shrubs, likely sprouting from the existing mature red beech trees during the post-war period of neglect. Around or just after WWI, two overhanging willows were added to the immediate surroundings of the east front elevation, symmetrically placed along the entrance bay. These willows grew to the height of the second floor after the war, casting shade on much of the main elevation of the building and causing interference with the paving of the access ramp. Despite efforts to remove the willows in the 1999–2002 renovation, discovery of a goldenrod in the tree cavity led to the abandonment of removal until 2009 when a storm fatally damaged one of them.
 

The condition in which Kotěra left the project in 1914 was considered a makeshift, lasting until the last attempt to build an extension in 1942. During WWII, the plan for the extension was abandoned, and after the war, it was eventually dissolved by the division of the institution. The care of the town green, including the landscaping of the museum’s court of honor and park, took a back seat in the following decade. The original concept received its final blow in the first half of the 1960s when a significant portion of the site was insensitively converted into a kindergarten garden. The kindergarten was established in 1955 when the District Youth Care Home in what is now 627 Kotěrova Street ceased to function after WWII. The museum’s courtyard of honor likely wasn’t maintained in the form it had functioned before the war for several years, losing its main representative function in the new conditions. Between 1960 and 1964, the rectangular space that had formerly defined the court of honor was repurposed for a kindergarten.
 

LZL