Second day in Prague. I thought I had defeated jet-lag, but alas! Woke up at 2:45 pm Prague time, that is, 8:45am Eastern. And now I’m writing this at 3:54am Prague, 9:54 Eastern. Oh well, always takes a couple days.
My walk around Prague
Walked about 6 miles today, at least according to Gmaps Pedometer. The first place I discovered was on the same hill that I explored yesterday, a beer garden/plaza area overlooking the city. Since I had just woken up, I did not partake, but evidently 3:30 is not an unusual time to toss back a few in Prague. It has some great potential as a place to do observations and interviews a la my Human Use course. There is the beer garden itself and two grassy areas, one that was used for lounging, and another for standing, talking and throwing a ball around. Both good and awful architecture are represented, but the area seems defined by trees and the views of the city. Between the grassy areas and the beer garden is a wide walkway that appeared to function as a type of plaza, with typical Prague pavers. William Whyte would recognize this behaviour: people gathering in the middle on the walkway, both adult and children. Older folks are also represented. Whyte would also appreciate the outdoor vending. The 1936 guidebook to Prague that I read for Human Use (Eugene Fodor’s “1936 on the Continent”) had a whole section on sausage shops, so I guess some things never change. There is a fairly large expat population around here, so it is unsurprising that I heard English a few times. Perhaps I can conduct my survey on some of these folks? I can think of a worse way of spending my day. Finally, the area is made perfect by its spectacular views of the city. Coming down the hill toward the city, I saw one masochist proving that bikers will use the paths we make available to them. The beer garden in at the top of this ridge.
Onward into Prague! This is one of the ugliest buildings in Prague (not in fact the ugliest! I will get to that at a later post, I am sure). It is a department store on the periphery of the center of the city. In my past travels to Prague, the area across the street has been under construction, but now it is complete. It is a massive mall, but that looks like this from the outside. Inside is typical mall, however.
On to Old Town Square, in one sense the center of the city, in that that physically, the city does rotate around it, and that it is one of the centers of the tourist image of the city. Nevertheless, I get the feeling that locals never go there, and when I surveyed architecture students who had lived in Prague, it was generally a place they avoided, largely because of the number of tourists. Evidently the Prague Marathon is on this weekend, and the square was taken over by a concert; the band was singing in English. I am unsure if this was part of the “Marathon Music Festival”, which is evidently “ fast becoming the cultural phenomenon of our time.” I would be interested to know if in this case there were some Czechs there or not, but my suspicion is that even then, there weren’t many. The Wenceslas Square-Old Town Square-Charles Bridge-Prague Castle spine seems to be only tourists, all the time.
Anyway, there were some interesting things to observe anyway. We talk about human use of the built environment, but what about rodent use? Demand for seats was certainly higher than supply. Perhaps some movable chairs?
As mentioned above, a tourist axis extends from Old Town Square to Charles Bridge. Kevin Lynch would call the axis a path, and the two attractions nodes. The path is remarkably well defined in how tourists use the area, it will be interesting to see if this is so in their drawn maps. This crush of tourists is Charles St, depicted in green below. Meanwhile, this is Platnerska, depicted in red below. While this street is somewhat out of the way, not so much so that people wouldn’t use it instead if crowding were an issue. Most of the time, you’ll hear me talk about how the presence of people attract more people, but Charles St. perhaps goes beyond what even I would consider pleasant. Nevertheless, this is the path that people follow. Is it because it is the obvious choice when standing at each node? Is it because the guides and guidebooks take them there? Is it because the winding medieval feeling streets and spaces are what people came to Prague for in the first place, and the broad street of Platnerska doesn’t sell that? I don’t know, but I’m interested to find out. People come to Prague multiple times, but do they go to Charles St. and Old Town Square a second time?
Paths between Old Town Square and Charles Bridge
Even in Prague,and I actually saw two of them! This spectacular alleyway and remnant of the communist policy to put industry in the heart of town is located at the bottom of the map above, really still in the medieval buildingscape. This guy looks down from above, while even on this little alley folks are trying to get people to follow the rules. I have seen little evidence of their use. It would be interesting to get trace evidence on how often they have to be refilled to see if anyone is actually picking up after their dogs. Some great seating. Seen a few obelisks and similar constructions around town: the city is often referred to as having a thousand spires. It would be interesting to see if, once laid out on a map, they create some sort of baroque ordering system. The city is so often referred to as baroque, but how about in this way? Some evidence it might be can be seen from the Castle.
On my way back home, I went completely out of the tourist realm, to the backside of the castle. I found a park that was made out of a small segment of the old walls, including one of the few remaining gates, all of which harkened back to many an Urban Form lecture.
All in all, a very good day. I definitely ended the day feeling each and every cobble through the soles of my shoes, however. I don’t think I’ll be trying to fit in with the Europeans by wearing my old dressy shoes anymore!
