What's in a Prague street name

Originally published on X on 31 October 2023.

A plovárna is an outdoor swimming pool, or, for Brits of a certain age, a lido.

Until the 1780s, this was the site of a Jesuit church and its garden, inevitably closed down as a result of Josef II’s reforms.

Around 1810, one Arnošt z Pfuolu founded an outdoor swimming pool here. This was probably the first of its kind in the entire Austro-Hungarian Empire (Vienna didn’t get one until 1812).

While it was officially for the military, it was used by the public as well, until 1840, when the civilians got their own pool – the Občanská plovárna. The classicist building was designed by Josef Kranner.

You certainly get better photos from the other side of the Vltava, so expect those to appear on here in due course.

Purchased by the Municipality of Prague in 1906, the pool served its original purpose until the 1950s.

As demonstrated by this picture, the building didn’t do too well out of the 2002 floods: https://extra.cz/fotka/482544

Or the 2013 ones: https://cs.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ob%C4%8Dansk%C3%A1_plov%C3%A1rna#/media/Soubor:Ob%C4%8Dansk%C3%A1_plov%C3%A1rna1.jpg

Reconstructed in 2019, Občanská plovárna is now ‘the most beautiful event gallery in Prague’ (and, based on the photos on its site, this may well be true): https://obcanskaplovarna.cz

The summer concerts there definitely have some of the best that Czech music has to offer: https://scenanaplovarne.cz

In 1999, the pool complex gave its name to Na plovárně, a talk show on Česká Televize hosted by Marek Eben, and, while it isn’t filmed there anymore, it definitely gets a certain calibre of guest in: https://www.ceskatelevize.cz/porady/1093836883-na-plovarne/