Film studio experts to furnish Prague Castle's Golden Lane houses | Prague Monitor
Film studio experts to furnish Prague Castle's Golden Lane houses
Prague, March 25 (CTK) - Experts from the Prague-Barrandov film studios will make replicas of period furnishings and other interior decorations in the tiny houses in the Golden Lane at Prague Castle that will be opened in June after a thorough one-year reconstruction, historian Pavel Jiras has told CTK.
The picturesque narrow street with houses from the 16th century adjacent to the castle's fortifications is one of the major tourist attractions at Prague Castle, the presidential seat.
The lane had to be repaired mainly because of its outdated sewerage that threatened the houses' foundations. The repair works launched last May have been completed these days.
After the reconstruction, a historical exposition will be installed in about a half of the houses to map the life in the Golden Lane from the late 16th century until the first half of the 20th century.
Shops for tourists will be preserved in the remaining houses.
Experts from the Barrandov studios are creating period furniture as well as other decorations and tools to be displayed in the Golden Lane houses.
"It is a prestigious task for us," said Jiras, from the Barrandov studios, who is the author and curator of the new exposition.
A legend has it that alchemists lived in the Golden Lane under Rudolph II, but actually the houses were inhabited by castle guards, servants and probably some goldsmiths. Prague-born German Jewish writer Franz Kafka (1883-1924) also shortly lived in one of the houses.
After the reconstruction, one of the interiors will look like the home of "red shooters" who guarded the castle gates and kept order under the reign of Habsburg Emperor and Czech King Rudolph II (1552-1612).
The other will show, for instance, an old goldsmith's workshop, a Renaissance pub as well as the home of the famous clairvoyant and fortune-teller Magdalena Prusova dubbed "Madame de Thebes" who lived in house No. 14 from 1918 until the end of World War II and people from all over Europe were visiting her, Jiras told CTK.
Artistic craftsmen from the Barrandov studios must apply very sophisticated methods to make the furniture and other items look authentic, such as patina-coating, shellac and wax finish on wood and a special glue made of hooves.
"Even the interior painting must be approved by heritage protectors and it must be carried out by professional patination experts. The result must look as if it were on the walls for dozens of years," Jiras said.
The film studio's craftsmen are to create, for instance, an "old" Renaissance table as well as as a baroque stove and the equipment of a goldsmith's workshop from the late baroque era. Only a 200-year-old working desk for the goldsmith's guild in the workshop will be an original piece.
Apart from the historical exposition in some houses that tourists will be able to see behind a protective glass partition, souvenir shops are to be again situated in the Golden Lane. Their lease-holders are being selected in a competition.
They should primarily offer traditional Czech hand-craft products, Frantisek Kadlec, head of the tourist section of the the Prague Castle administration, said.
The construction works in the Golden Lane have cost some 34 million crowns, according to the Prague Castle Administration.
