What's in a Prague street name

Originally posted on X on 1 February 2024.

Back in the early days of the New Town, this street was called Sedmihrady, which is Czech for Transylvania (see also: the German ‘Siebenbürgen’), and if you want to know a little bit about Czechs in Romania, take a look at https://whatsinapraguestreetname.com/2024/06/30/prague-2-day-52-rumunska/.

However, it’s more likely that the street was named after a house called U sedmi hradů (At the Seven Castles), which was reputedly owned by George of Poděbrady’s cook.

Around the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, Prague underwent asanace, which can be translated as ‘rehabilitation’ or ‘renewal’, but, in reality, also involved the destruction of a lot of historic buildings.

Josefov, formerly Prague’s Jewish ghetto, bore the brunt of this. Three important synagogues were destroyed, and so, in 1899, the Israelite Synagogue Association bought some land on this street in order to build a new one.

In 1903, a proposal for its design was submitted by Wilhelm Stiassny – who had also designed several synagogues across the Austro-Hungarian Empire – and was approved.

Building started in 1905, carried out by the Czech Alois Richter, and was completed in the following year. It’s also known as the Jubilee Synagogue (Jubilejní synagoga), as it was built to honour Franz Joseph’s Silver Jubilee.

For those who are rightly pointing out that Silver = 50, and 1906 – 1848 = not 50, the original plan to build the synagogue had been hatched in 1898.

The synagogue was closed down by the Nazis in 1941, and used as storage space for confiscated Jewish property – which is presumably why it wasn’t destroyed.

It’s aligned with modern Orthodox Judaism, and has welcomed tourists since 2008 (though not at the moment, and not until March: https://www.synagogue.cz/jeruzalemska-synagoga?p=16

Also of interest in the street is the functionalist Edison Transformation Station, built between 1926 and 1930. Part of Prague’s electricity network until the 1990s, it now hosts an excellent cinema: https://edisonfilmhub.cz