New Town Hall
From Prague-wiki
New Town Hall (Novoměstská radnice in Czech) is the former town hall of the New Town of Prague. The historical New Town Hall building with its monumental 65.5 metres high tower dominates the biggest square of Prague, today’s Charles Square. Although New Town was founded already in 1348 by Emperor Charles IV., a dominating feature of the most important property of the city council, prismatic corner tower, was built as late as 1451 – 1456. Originally bottom part used to be a walk-through, but today it is walled up. Later a bell was suspended in the tower created by Prague’s bell founder master Bartoloměj and a chapel was established on the 2nd floor.
At the beginning the Town Hall tower was fulfilling several functions – representative and functional. The functional part lied in setting up two quite small flats for tower keepers on the level of the tower’s gallery. From the city security point of view the tower keepers were important people. From the gallery they were constantly observing surroundings of the town for enemy troops. Thus the tower had to be so high, to be able to see over the city walls. Another important duty of the tower keepers was to observe, whether somewhere in the city fire did arise. In case of emergency it was their responsibility to clang the bell placed in the tower to alarm the city.
The tower, as well as the main building of the Town Hall was reconstructed several times over the centuries. Even fires were not exception. Today the tower of New Town Hall is accessible to the public during the summer tourist season.
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