What's in a Prague street name

Originally published on X on 26 February 2023.

Like yesterday’s Hlavova, the area was built up gradually and the street got a name in 1963.

Emil Votoček was born in Hostinné in 1872. He studied technical engineering at what is now ČVUT, and subsequently studied in both Mulhouse and in Göttingen (where he studied sugar chemistry, his main field of expertise).

In 1895, he became an assistant at ČVUT. Having become an associate professor in 1895, he became a ‘full’ professor of inorganic and organic chemistry two years later, and, by 1921, was the university’s rector.

As well as this, he had a deep interest in classical music, and, from the 1930s onwards, wrote about 70 compositions, as well as a dictionary of musical terms from foreign languages.

One of Votoček’s students was Otto Wichterle (1913-98), inventor of modern soft contact lenses.

Votoček remained with the university until 1939, when the Nazis took over Bohemia and Moravia. He died in 1950.