The palace becomes a library

Begin at Schrattenbach Palace, where a Baroque aristocratic residence now houses the central Jiří Mahen Library. The library has occupied Kobližná 4 since 1951 and today describes itself not only as a lending service but as a cultural, educational and community centre. That change of use sounds natural only in retrospect. A palace was designed to separate a privileged household from the street; a public library is supposed to admit strangers, circulate knowledge and reward lingering. Read the facade as a social contradiction. Then imagine the invisible movement of books through rooms once organised by rank. Culture begins here as inheritance—but inheritance redistributed rather than merely admired.