The Sidewalks of Prague

From May 17-20, 2006, I visited the city of Prague, in the Czech Republic. It is a truly drazzling city with countless buildings of great beauty. I also found myself captivated, however, by the sidewalks of Prague. You will find below the photos I took of a number of the sidewalks. I hope you enjoy them as much as I did.

I think the sidewalks caught my attention so dramatically because my views on ornamentation in architecture and public space generally have been changing. I used to be a "form follows function" kind of guy: I appreciated the clean lines of modern design and scorned elaborate designs that didn't seem to really do anything. If it isn't "doing" anything, then why waste time, effort and money building it?

Then I came across the writings of the architect Christopher Alexander. Alexander has developed a healthy dislike for modern architecture and believes that it is possible to come up with a "pattern language" that is universal and can help us design and build structures that improve our quality of life on multiple levels.

Alexander has in recent years published his "Nature of Order" series of books, which argue for the place of ornamentation in our architecture and other aspects of human creativity. I have come to agree and urge you to check out his writings, especially: The Timeless Way of Building and the Nature of Order series.

These sidewalks not only reflect a wonderful aesthetic, but also a very smart practicality. In Chicago and many/most US cities, the sidewalks are slabs of concrete. Very dull and in many ways not all that functional. With the extreme temperatures of Chicago, the concrete usually cracks shortly after it is laid in place. And in the many tree-shaded sidestreets of Chicago's numerous neighborhoods, roots cause the most delightful disruptions in the straight surfaces of the sidewalks.

Prague has similar problems with tree roots and wide fluctuations in temperature. Their "mosaic" sidewalks offer something of a solution. As temperature changes cause movement in the ground, the individual cubes will shift and sometimes pop out, but they are easily repaired, since the damage is much more localized.

Men at Work! A few men are laying out a new sidewalk at the Letensky sady, a park on the north bank of the Vltava River.

Very nice pattern of rectangles within rectangles, mostly composed of the small cubes that are the standard building blocks for Prague sidewalks. I also like the contrast/intersection of the larger size tiles with the small cubes.

A delightful zigzag pattern and fine use of negative space to create a complex design. One of my favorites!

What a wonderful expression of artistic integrity! Imagine working hard laying out these small cubes of stone in the alternating checkerboard pattern (25 cubes in each square). And then you come to these metal plates. What to do? You could simply work the square shapes up to the edge and then carve out fragments of the cubes. Or you could completely integrate the oval shapes into the stonework.

Hey, no fair! I was all set to take a photo of this wonderful circle of stones within straight lines. In particular, I wanted to capture the small brass metal objects near the center. And then a passerby stepped right into the middle of the shot. Oh well, check out the full, unobstructed view in the next photo.

Is it a sun bursting out of the background of straight lines? An extended integration of the round shape with the rest of the sidewalk? And what are those three brass cylinders embedded near the center?

Another nice example of using contrast and patterns within patterns to delight the eye.

Nothing fancy, but I think the long stretch of uninterrupted checkerboard, offering a clear path for everyday pedestrians, probably not even noticing the detailed work beneath their feet. This sidewalk is one block from the Prague Autoklub, where I gave my two-day training to Czech and Slovak PL/SQL programmers on May 17-18, 2006.

Right outside the Radisson SAS Alcron Hotel (a beautiful art deco hotel). Good example of the non-linear, almost-floral like sprays of tiles. Right alongside a simple, broad pattern.

Right on Wenscelas Square (actually a long, broad boulevard), this corner not only features a wonderfully high-contrast pattern, but also uses tiles with shades of pink, red, yellow. Even more striking when wet!

Delightful integration of color and shape, breaking up the repetition of rectangles.

Strong repetition, the eye instantly drawn to the pattern of the dark cubes. Now concentrate hard and take another look at, reconfiguring four white cubes at the center of four long thin rectangles as the source of the pattern, and create new alignments of shapes from there.

Wonderful use of varied colors of tiles to enrich the pleasure of the simple pattern of rectangles.

A very attractive confluence of different lines. Two different curving patterns, separated by two straight bands of light and dark tiles.

Encountered in the Old Jewish Town in Prague, one block from Maisel Synagogue. A truly delightful sunburst of tiles. Notice the use of the slender stones in the center, graduating to the full cube size.

One of my favorite photographs. A simple shape embedded within a homogeneous background, reverse colors right next to one another, and then dark shadow of the lamppost cutting across the tiles.

Lots of different colors side by side.

A wide band of a very detailed pattern, nice use of dark gray and reddish cubes. Notice also the careful laying of small dark stones around the utility plate in the sidewalk.

A wonderful merging of straight and curving lines!

I liked the way the straight lines in the patterns co-exist with the gratings.