Building housing Goethe Institute in Prague damaged
Parts of the stucco decorating the art nouveau building which houses the Goethe Institute headquarters in Prague came loose and fell onto the pavement and tram tracks late on Thursday evening. No one was hurt. The institute remains open, although the corner in the immediate vicinity of the building has been closed. A protective net will be placed over the damaged portion.
The cause of the collapse could be the high temperatures that Czechia is currently experiencing, causing the metal elements holding the stucco decoration to expand, although this theory still has to be confirmed by further investigation, the Czech News Agency reports.
The building, which is on the Masaryk embankment near the National Theatre, was built by the architect Jiři Stibral in 1905 as the headquarters of the First Czech Insurance Bank. After the Second World War, it housed the Bulgarian embassy, and between 1949 and 1990 the embassy of the German Democratic Republic. The Goethe Institute, whose mission is to support the German language and culture abroad, has been operating there since 1990 and the German Academic Exchange Service and Café Goethe also have their facilities in the building.
