70 years since the Chapel of St Mary Magdalene became Czechoslovakia’s first relocated building
Seventy years ago, a technical operation took place in Prague that had no precedent in Czechoslovakia at the time. The small Baroque Chapel of St. Mary Magdalene beneath Letná Hill was meant to be demolished to make way for an enormous Stalin monument. In the end, it was saved by being relocated, making it the first building in the country to be preserved in this way.
Tucked away at the foot of Letná
The Chapel of St Mary Magdalene stands on the banks of the Vltava river, not far from the centre of Prague. It was built in 1635 as a vineyard chapel of a Cyriac monastery. Although it survived wars and the city’s many transformations, in the 1950s it faced a serious threat: a planned road and Stalin monument required its removal.
Engineer Bechyně‘s bold plan
The rescue was proposed by the renowned Czech structural engineer Stanislav Bechyně. The chapel was first reinforced, encircled with steel bands, and underpinned with a reinforced concrete ring. It was then moved 30.75 metres upstream along the Vltava using transport trolleys. The operation took two days and became the first relocation of a historic building in Czechoslovakia.
A new life in a new location
After the relocation, the chapel was restored and stands on the Edvard Beneš Embankment until this day. It is now used by the Old Catholic Church and is well known for its Christmas exhibition of nativity scenes, which are handcrafted in Bethlehem. Architecturally, the chapel is inspired by Roman models, and its stained glass from the 1950s reflects its dramatic history.
Although the chapel was the first to be moved, the most famous relocation was that of the Church of the Assumption of the Virgin Mary in Most in 1975. Coal mining took priority, and Czechoslovakia secured a place in the Guinness Book of Records when the church was moved by 841.1 metres.
