point of fact it came to us rather from abroad, from South Germany. More plastic than the Renaissance style, and moreover hallowed by native tradition, the Baroque was soon welcomed even by the Renaissance school, as was made evident at the Architects’ and Engineers’ Exhibition of 1898. When the work of sanitary improvement in the old quarters of Prague involved the sacrifice of more than one precious relic of the past, an attempt was made to repair these losses by the erection of impossible flat-dwellings in the forms, often so delicate, of this Old Prague style. From time to time even architecture in metal was undertaken, such as the iron palace of the great Industrial Exhibition of 1891 or that imitation of the Eiffel Tower which disfigures the Petřín Hill.
In this welter of anarchy and pretence, only a handful of architects trained in the stern discipline of Zítek and Schulz succeeded in maintaining their dignity. Thus Osvald Polívka contrived to give a monumental character to his Bohemian Bank, a block consistently developed and tastefully arranged. Václav Roštlapil, a pupil of Hansen, managed to turn to good account even the difficult situation occupied, on the embankment of the Malá Strana at Prague, by the great mass of his Straka Academy, a mass well organised and with Baroque features that are in excellent taste. Antonín Balšánek, following in Schulz’s footsteps, erected the highly commendable Prague City Museum; but he lost all sense of proportion when, already a whole-hearted champion of the modern style, he built the vast Prague Municipal Hall (Obecní dům), a mere congeries of trite and heterogeneous forms.
Again, it would be unjust to pass over in silence the pioneer work of Balšánek in the construction of towns. In Prague, in the course of his labours, he often met with opposition from those who wished to preserve the ancient character of certain
