The Kinsky Palace, a Baroque jewel on Prague’s Old Town Square, will close to the public this summer for an extensive year-long renovation, the National Gallery Prague (NGP) confirmed.

As a result, the iconic site will not host any exhibitions in 2025.

The reconstruction, estimated at 60 million CZK, will be funded through a subsidy from the Czech Ministry of Culture, according to NGP spokesperson Jana Holcová, speaking to ČTK.

The original plan was limited to installing a barrier-free entrance, but the project has since expanded significantly.

“The renovation will cover two entrance portals, new flooring, updated heating and electrical systems, window replacements, and a modern elevator to improve accessibility,” Holcová said. The upgrades will focus primarily on the exhibition halls on the second and third floors.

The bookstore in the palace shut down operations on June 1 to prepare for the closure. Staff and furniture will be relocated, with some employees temporarily moved to the Veletržní Palace and other gallery locations. A limited number of staff will remain on site throughout the works.

Constructed between 1755 and 1765, the Kinsky Palace—originally known as the Golz-Kinsky Palace—stands on layers of Romanesque and Gothic foundations.

Its uniform roof and sculpted façade make it one of the most recognizable buildings on Old Town Square. While initially attributed to Kilián Ignác Dientzenhofer, who died in 1751, scholars now believe the building was designed and constructed under the direction of Anselmo Lurago.

Beyond this renovation, the NGP is planning an even more ambitious investment: a new depository in Jinonice, near the Nové Butovice metro station.

With 2.2 billion CZK allocated from the Ministry of Culture, the facility will help relieve pressure on the Veletržní Palace, allowing for its future modernization. “We expect to complete the tender documentation and choose a construction contractor this year,” Holcová stated.

Meanwhile, a new permanent exhibition—Art of Asia Across Space and Time—is scheduled to open at Salmovský Palace. Originally planned for late April, the opening has been postponed to October 17 due to logistical and curatorial delays.

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Proposals to re-erect a Baroque column with a Marian statue in Old Town Square has led to a religious controversy.

A group of Catholics and Prague history enthusiasts hope to erect in the city’s central Old Town Square a replica of the original column built in the 1650s and torn down in 1918.

Its height reached almost 14 m and on the top, there was a two meters high golden-plated statue of Virgin Mary, in the corners of the stone railings there were four groups of angels fighting with evil forces.  

The column was viewed as a symbol of the Habsburg empire. It was erected to commemorated Prague’s defenders against the Protestant Swedish army at the end of the Thirty Years War of 1618-1648.

The Marian Column was also very important for time determination because its shadow was showing the high noon during its fall over the Prague Meridian. 

In the past, similar plans to re-erect the column were stopped under both Nazi and Communist rule when many Czechs turned away from the Catholic Church.

In 1989 — shortly after the fall of Communism — local Catholics and history enthusiasts set up the “Association for the Renewal of the Marian Column.”

Archbishop Dominik Duka of Prague has spoken in favor of the project but has done so only privately “as a Catholic and a citizen.” The archdiocese has not taken an official position.

However, the association has found itself caught in a bureaucratic tangle. It possesses a building permit — scheduled to expire in July — but not permission for construction to begin at a specific site.

Hence, the association’s members have twice thwarted from digging up the square’s paving stones by municipal police.

The remains of the Marian Column are nowadays placed in the Lapidarium of the National Museum in Výstaviště.

Author: red