Monograph Villa Lanna in Prague available for foreign readers

                  

Photos: Stanislava Kyselová, Academic Bulletin

The monograph is currently available also for foreign readers, as it was just published in English version. Furthermore it has been extended of a chapter dedicated to villa Lanna in Gmunden, which became the most important Neo-Renaissance villa in the neighbouring Austria.

Adalbert Lanna Junior approached both his villas as complex pieces of art: architecture, painting and sculpting decoration as well as handicraft details are all produced on the same stylistic level and in the highest possible quality. The ideological programme of both villas is very personal. We repeatedly meet allusions to the building owners’ profession, his important social status and cultural mission. The owner’s wife plays an important part in the decoration of the villas, but in the Bubeneč villa it is above all their son, Adalbert Lanna III, the predestined successor of the family. This ideological programme, elaborated to the smallest details, is at the same time approached in such a way as to satisfy even the most demanding visitor intellectually as well as aesthetically. With this construction, Adalbert Lanna Junior successfully stands side by side with magnates of the Renaissance Italy, grand dukes of Medici, dignitaries of the Venetian Republic or Roman popes. They all left behind individualized residence that carry the stamps of their owners at the one hand, but have timeless validity and fascinate each visitor to this day. Villa Lanna in Bubeneč is one of the last European residences through which its owner declares who he is, where he comes from and where he is heading.

The Staff is indebted to Prof. Jan Bažant who kindly wrote the historical and artistic aspects of this magnificent edifice.