When a huge flood hit Prague in 1890, the wild water tore down two vaults of the Charles Bridge. During the flood that rushed through the city this past August, the ancient bridge resisted the force of the current, but many other monuments and cultural institutions, including museums and galleries, were severely damaged. It appears that some of the destruction will be irreparable.
Located on the left bank of Vltava River in a restored, Neo-Gothic stone mill, the recently inaugurated Kampa Museum, home of the Jana and Meda Mladek Foundation, was the first Prague institution imperiled by the flood. The museum houses an acclaimed collection of Czech modern and contemporary art, including an Important group of abstract paintings by Frantisek Kupka; it opened this past June, after years of political and financial wrangling. Ironically, the fledgling museum's first crisis was neither with the bureaucratic apparatus nor with funding, but with nature.
As the river rose, curators and volunteers managed to move most of the displayed works out of danger, but due to both the water's speed and the technical difficulties in quickly dismantling heavy objects, several large sculptures had to be left behind. Magdalena Jetelova's giant wooden chair installed on a stone pier in front of the museum was swept away and has yet to be found and a large glass billboard by Dana Zamecnikova was shattered.
Among other cultural casualties were parts of the architectural archive of Prague's National Technical Museum, which were destroyed after spending nearly two days under water. The historic Old Jewish Quarter was flooded with water from underground drainage; the water level exceeded 8 feet in the landmark 16th-century Pinkas Synagogue, known also for its Holocaust memorial; other buildings administered by the Jewish Museum were affected as well.
Outside Prague, especially in the south, damage was severe. "The flood harmed Cesky Krumlov more than all the wars combined," proclaimed a newspaper headline about one of the Czech Republic's architectural treasures, an ancient town protected by the UNESCO World Cultural Heritage organization. Assessment of damages there is currently under way.
A number of artists' studios were also damaged or completely destroyed. The renowned Czech painter Antonin Strizek was evacuated from his ground-floor studio so quickly that he was unable to rescue many of his paintings.
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