What's in a Prague street name

V malých domech I was built in 1935.

You’ll often hear it mentioned how the First Czechoslovak Republic was (after 1933) the only democratic country in the region, and how it was one of the world’s ten most industrialised countries. Cue nostalgia (also, it seems it was ‘only’ 14th).

One of the facts that this needs to be balanced against is the Great Depression, which hit Czechoslovakia hard, especially around 1933, when industrial production almost halved.

This meant downsizing – including when it came to building new homes. The houses in this street – while not tiny – can’t be compared to the villas that had sprung up in the 1920s. The street name translates as ‘In the small houses’ (I).

They were built by Václav Šindelář, and were made of unplastered white bricks in the Western style. Šindelář was also responsible for many of those villas in Braník (see https://whatsinapraguestreetname.com/2025/10/08/prague-4-day-192-na-dobesce/ to get to know the area).

Twenty years earlier, he’d been the chief construction manager for the Prague sanatorium (https://whatsinapraguestreetname.com/2025/07/04/prague-4-day-136-u-podolskeho-sanatoria/), and in 1924, he designed the Braník Theatre (which we haven’t got to yet, but which is awesome).