Novomlýnská vodárenská věž, Baroque water tower in New Town, Czech Republic
The Novomlýnská Water Tower stands in Prague's Petrská quarter near Štefánik Bridge, its square plan formed by two concentric stone prisms with a staircase between them. The core is rubble masonry clad in sandstone blocks, and five storeys each have one elongated window per side. At 30 metres, the sixth storey holds a lusthaus with twelve windows.
A wooden water tower was first documented in 1484. A stone tower built around 1602–1606 collapsed in the flood of 6 February 1655; builder Jan Decapauli reused its masonry for the Baroque tower completed in 1658–1660. It supplied lower New Town until 1877, when a new pumping station took over.
The tower now hosts a multimedia exhibition about Prague fires, showcasing how firefighting methods evolved through videomapping and virtual reality displays.
The tower opens daily from April to September and allows visitors to explore the exhibition inside. An elevator within the structure helps navigate through the different levels.
The sixth floor, at a height of thirty metres, holds a lusthaus with twelve windows, a feature no other water tower in the world has. The water tank itself sat in the fourth floor at thirty-three metres and held just under one cubic metre.
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