Vila Amerika

Muzeum Antonína Dvoráka (Antonín Dvorák Museum)

The grey and uninteresting street, Ke Karlovu, consisting mainly of sterile hospital buildings, hides a charming baroque jewel - the Michna Summer Palace, also called Vila Amerika.

In the 18th century, however, there were only gardens and fields around when Jan Václav Michna z Vacinova requested the architect Kilian Ignaz Dienzenhofer to initiate the building. It is said that the charming country house which is decorated inside with frescos and outside with statues by Matthias Bernard Braun in the garden, was in fact a noble love-nest. However, its stylistic purity makes it one of the main monuments of Prague Baroque.

During the 18th century it changed ownership several times. It was even turned into a garden restaurant in 1826. The name of the restaurant, Amerika, has survived to this day. The Prague city council bought the palace in the 19th century, and subsequently there were various ideas of how to make use of it. In the 1930s it became the property of the Society for Founding a Monument to Antonín Dvorák - latterly the Antonín Dvorák Foundation.

In this it acquired a truly dignified purpose: as an exhibition of the life and work of the composer. The exhibition in the summer palace introduces Dvorák's personality, his work as both a composer and pedagogue. One section describes his life and another his musical creations. Photos show him with his family, his friends and interpreters of his music. It is very interesting to see his correspondence, the documentation, manuscripts, first prints and also programmes. This documentation comes to life with the personal possessions of Dvorák, for example his furniture, piano, violin, graduation gown, awards and much more.


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