What's in a Prague street name

Originally published on X on 18 June 2024.

A ‘nemocenská pojišťovna’ is a ‘health insurance company’, and, between 1924 and 1926, a building designed by Bohumil Hypšman and František Roith was created to house one of these.

This coincided roughly with the same time that grand ministerial buildings were being built on the Vltava (https://whatsinapraguestreetname.com/2024/11/10/prague-1-day-257-nabrezi-ludvika-svobody/).

Later, it served as a polyclinic, and then as an office for the Czech Social Security Administration. The Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs apparently moved the latter to Vysočany in 2006.

I’m the most Prague-positive person I know (especially when compared to people on Twitter, my God), but the fact that such a grand – and potentially useful – building is sitting idle and decaying in such a prime location is nothing short of a disgrace.

As is the fact that hardly anyone on the internet – for whom ‘up in arms’ is a default body pose – seems to be up in arms about this.

The four statues on the façade are meant to symbolise the functions of the insurance company: work, the family, life, and the spa. I think we can all take inspiration from them, and wish they weren’t accompanied by a broken window.

And, seriously, I know I’m repeating myself, but what the f**k is a building with a façade like this doing looking like that?

This one’s really got to me, and I’m going to log off before I become another Ranty Twitter Person.