Prague - Weisbier's House

The Weisbírovský House (also called Manderovský, A the two virgins) is first documented in 1393. From that year onwards, there were frequent changes of owners. In 1420, during the Hussite storms, the house burnt to the ground. The town remained deserted until 1455, after which it was rebuilt. The house is valued at a relatively high price in 1461. There are no known major building alterations until 1506, in which year the house was joined by the owner's person with the neighbouring house no. 14/III. In 1541 the house burned down again and was sold as a ruin in 1543 with the proviso that further construction would be provided by the new owner.

By 1549 a new house was built, but not as a show house. Major building interventions date back to the following years, when they are confirmed by an agreement between the then owner Vavrinec (Vávra Starý) of Obora and a neighbour to build a boundary wall together. In 19585, the newly built house was divided in the presence of the builder Ulrik Aostalli, the master mason Bernard di Alberto and the master carpenter Andrea Altmann. In the description made at that time, the arcade, the entrance hall and even the underground cellar are mentioned for the first time, but they were eventually assigned to No 14/III. During the Thirty Years' War, the house was probably not damaged, but neither was it improved.

The house was bought in 1714 by Christoph Dientzenhofer for 900 zl. paid in cash from Václav Hoffmann. However, he undoubtedly embarked on a radical reconstruction and enlargement of the house, which was completed at the latest in the year of Christoph Dientzenhofer's death in 1722. The price of the house mentioned in the distribution of the inheritance of Kryštof Dientzenhofer was already 5.800 zl.

The house was given as a dowry to Christoph Dientzenhofer's daughter Maria Anna (13.7.1695-?), who married Franz Josef Krusburgsky in 1719.

In the following years, the building work was again limited to the most necessary maintenance and probably also in 1810-111 there was a certain structural change. However, it could not have been major, because in 1814 the building is listed as moderately preserved.

The last major reconstruction was begun in 1985.

Today the house serves the needs of the Parliament of the Czech Republic.

The five-bay terraced house encloses a fairly regular rectangular courtyard together with the left wing and the rear outbuilding. Today's façade thus gives an unusual impression as the result of a high Baroque building, later simplified and supplemented with details in the 19th and 20th centuries. In Langweil's model, the windows of the first floor are still enclosed by cornices and the window sills of the windows of the second floor have a slightly different structure.

The ground floor, with its three compressed arches of arcades, has a new articulation of quadratic rustication, while the 1st floor windows consist of moulded architraves set on a continuous sill cornice and simple sill panels.

The supranenesters remain unfinished, showing deeply recessed shells (conchs), which are supplemented in the 2nd and 4th bays by female busts of apparently younger origin. The windows of the 2nd floor are directly connected with the suprafenesters of the lower floor, a distinctive motif here being the incised recessed fields and lateral glyphed consoles. The windows of the 2nd floor end at the crown cornice without framing it. This motif can therefore also be considered an additional simplification. The gabled roof is now illuminated by a pair of brand new dormers added when the attic was added before 1996.

The courtyard façades are plain, only the windows are architraved with architraves, undoubtedly a new design derived from the architraves of the main façade of No. 176/III.

The arcade is vaulted, with three pairs of lunette buttresses. The passage has a similar vault, probably dating from the same period. On the right side of the passage there used to be a pair of ribbon portals with handles (now removed), opposite them a double staircase from the Baroque Dientzenhofer reconstruction is inserted into the courtyard. At the bottom of the stairs the landings have cross arches.

To the right of the passage runs a room with an oval vault with buttresses and ridges, certainly Renaissance, but shortened by an inserted partition. It is lit by an original stone-lined window (with a new sill cornice) facing the arcade. Also the course of the room to the left is interrupted by a partition, this time of an inserted staircase.

The cloister vaulting remains in the wing; the other vaulted part (of two bays) with pentagonal sections was built at the earliest during Dientzenhofer's rebuilding, but may be even younger. The perimeter walls are undoubtedly older, but most probably belonged to the neighbouring building no. 14/III for a long time.

In the rear building, the interlocking sections of the vaulting (although without ridges) point to a Renaissance or early Baroque origin. The first floor is vaulted only at the staircase (vaulted with buttresses). The 2nd floor repeats the layout of the lower floor; here too the rooms are furnished with accessories that partly evoke the original condition.

The House serves the needs of the Parliament of the Czech Republic.