Rudolfinum in Prague

The neo-renaissance building was built between 1876 and 1884. It is a joint work by leading Czech architects of the second half of the 19th century, Josef Zítek (who also built the National Theatre) and Josef Schulz (who also built the National Museum). It is a world-famous concert hall and the seat of the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra, who performed there for the first time in 1896 under the baton of Antonín Dvořák. The main hall – Dvořák Hall – is a venue of extraordinary classical music concerts. It is said that during the occupation Reinhard Heydrich, Reichsprotektor, ordered to remove the statue of Mendelssohn-Bartholdy from the attics of Rudolfinum because of his non-Aryan origin. However, workers started to remove the statue of Hitler’s favourite Richard Wagner by mistake, but the mistake was soon revealed and remedied. During the war the statue of Mendelssohn-Bartholdy was hidden in secret and put back after the war.