Municipal House (Obecní dům), Sladkovsky Hall

Originally designed as a lecture hall and preserved with its period lights, tiles and silk-effect wallpaper, Sladkovský Hall offers an intimate setting for classical concerts in Prague’s Municipal House.

Sladkovský Hall is one of the representative rooms on the first floor of the Municipal House. Its restrained decoration and carefully balanced proportions distinguish it from the building’s more exuberant interiors, while preserved materials and lighting retain the character of the house as it was completed in 1912.

Preserved details from 1912

Originally known as the Lecture Hall, the room retains its original lights, tiled surfaces and distinctive silk-imitation wallpaper. The Municipal House itself was built between 1905 and 1911 to designs by Antonín Balšánek and Osvald Polívka and officially approved in 1912.

With an area of approximately 200 square metres, Sladkovský Hall can accommodate up to 304 guests in a concert arrangement. Its scale makes it a more intimate counterpart to the building’s monumental Smetana Hall.

The man and artworks behind the name

The hall bears the name of Karel Sladkovský (1823–1880), a Czech journalist and politician associated with the national and democratic movements of the nineteenth century.

A bust of Sladkovský by sculptor Ladislav Kofránek is displayed in the room together with a landscape by painter Josef Ullmann. These works connect the otherwise understated interior with the civic and cultural ideals for which the Municipal House was created.