Velká aula Karolina, Ceremonial hall in Old Town, Prague, Czech Republic
Velká aula Karolina is an assembly hall in the Old Town featuring Gothic architecture with a large bay window and a university chapel inside. The space contains an altar decorated with a Gothic painting of the Virgin Mary and serves as the venue for major ceremonial events.
The building became the home of Charles University in 1386 when King Václav IV transferred the property, forming the foundation of Karolinum. This site developed into a central place for academic gatherings over subsequent centuries.
A tapestry on the front wall shows Charles IV presenting the university's founding charter to Saint Wenceslas, created by M. Teinitzerová in 1948. This work tells the story of the institution through imagery and shapes how visitors experience the room.
The hall accommodates around 405 seated visitors and about 30 standing guests and hosts academic ceremonies such as graduations and lectures. Access should be confirmed beforehand since this is an active university facility.
The baroque organ was moved here from the dissolved Jesuit college in Chomutov during the hall's mid-20th-century reconstruction. The room also holds a marble tomb slab of professor Matouš Collinus z Chotěřiny from the mid-16th century, set before the Gothic bay window.
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