Portheimka, Baroque château in Smíchov, Czech Republic
Portheimka is a baroque summer palace in Smíchov featuring a grand marble hall on the first floor adorned with allegorical frescoes and baroque sculptures depicting figures such as Day and Night. The building contains café facilities on the ground level and uses upper floors and additional spaces for rotating exhibitions.
Architect Kilián Ignác Dientzenhofer designed this residence in 1728, blending influences from Italian and Czech building traditions into its baroque structure. The property later changed ownership to the Porges family, becoming an important cultural landmark.
The name Portheimka comes from the Porges von Portheim brothers, who bought the villa in 1828 and built a calico factory on half the garden in 1830. The building is also called Dienzenhofer Palace or Bukvojka, after the Buquoy family. Today the ground floor holds the Českavárna Portheimka café, and the side entrance leads to the former Galerie D, used for short exhibitions by artists linked to Prague 5.
The palace welcomes visitors through its ground-floor café and exhibition spaces that occupy the upper levels. The layout is straightforward to navigate, making it easy to move through different rooms and appreciate both the building itself and temporary displays.
The garden was redesigned in the French style, yet it still preserves an original baroque stone water tank dating from the building's construction. This element reveals how the grounds evolved while maintaining pieces of their earlier design.
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