Malostranská Beseda Rings Again
November 2009 -The extensive repair of the monument began three years ago. A restaurant and coffee bar will be situated in the basement and on the ground floor the arcade will serve as a beer parlour. Concerts and theatre performances will take place on the first floor and the second floor will be used for community group events, presentations and exhibitions.
The reconstruction of Malostranská Beseda in Prague will soon be finished. The city district of Prague 1 wants to take over the historic monument, in which it has invested around 190 million CZK, before Christmas. The festive opening will include a folk c
The Town Hall is busy preparing the festive opening planned for December 19th. Cardinal Miloslav Vlk will consecrate the bell, and it will then be hoisted up into one of the three spires. These were returned to Malostranská Beseda last year in September after being missing for almost two centuries. The bells had been in the building from the 17th Century until the beginning of the 19th Century.
In order to raise money for the municipal bell, the town hall started a public collection. So far people have contributed more than 180,000 CZK towards it, although the bell will cost 330,000 CZK. It is expected that additional funds will be raised by collections within community groups.
The bell, made of a special copper alloy, will weigh 160 kilograms and it will have a diameter of 63 centimetres at the bottom. The Town Hall commissioned an acoustic analysis of the tones of all the bells in and around Malá Strana; this means that the new bell’s tone will resonate well with its immediate acoustic environment. Acting on the results of the analysis, the bell founder decided to tune the bell to dis 2. For structural reasons, the bell will not swing but will instead be struck by an electromagnetic hammer.
Malostranská beseda a.s., the winner of the tender, will lease the Malostranská Beseda building. The annual rent paid to the Town Hall of Prague 1 will amount to 1.56 million CZK. According to the contract, the tenant must invest 20 million CZK in the equipment of the building.
From the end of the 15th century to the end of the 18th Century Beseda served as the Town Hall of Menší Město pražské (Lesser Prague Town). In 1575 the representatives of the non catholic nobility drew up the so called Česká konfese (Czech Confession – combined faith). Since the second half of the 19th Century it has served as the cultural and social centre of Malá Strana (Lesser Town).
