Church of the Most Sacred Heart of Our Lord

Plecnik's 1932 church, a brick box with a glazed clock the size of a rose window

Area Vinohrady
Type Church
Time needed 40m

The Church of the Most Sacred Heart of Our Lord stands on náměstí Jiřího z Poděbrady in Vinohrady, built between 1928 and 1932 to a design by the Slovene architect Jože Plečnik. It is a brick box with a flat-fronted tower carrying an enormous glazed clock, and nothing else in Prague looks like it. People come for the architecture rather than for anything inside.

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Getting there

Metro A (green) to Jiřího z Poděbrady and you come up onto the square with the church in front of you — no walk at all. From Staroměstské náměstí it is about fifteen minutes door to door, with one metro ride. Trams 11 and 13 stop nearby on Vinohradská. The square is flat; the ramps up the tower are not normally open.

What you see

Start at the west end and look at the wall: dark brick below, a broad band of pale stone blocks set proud of the face like oversized rustication, then plain brick above. It is a classical idea done in cheap materials, deliberately. The tower is flat and screen-like rather than a spire, with the glazed clock face set into it at the scale of a rose window, and a pair of ramps rising behind to the bell stage. Walk the long sides to see how little the building concedes — a row of small square windows high up, and almost no modelling. Inside is a single wide hall with a flat dark ceiling, no columns, light coming from high up, and a gilded figure of Christ above the altar against plain brick. The fittings are Plečnik's own, down to the lamps and the rails, and the whole interior is held together by proportion rather than by decoration. It takes twenty minutes if you look properly.

What to pair it with

Vinohrady itself is the obvious pairing, with the Riegrovy sady beer garden and its view of the castle a few minutes north. Vyšehrad is two stops south on the same side of the river, and the National Monument at Vítkov is reachable from here.

When to go

The square holds a farmers' market on certain days and the church is at its best then, with the building reading against the stalls. Interior access is the catch: the church is often open only around services and for limited hours, so check before you go, and treat the exterior as the certain part of the visit. Morning light falls on the entrance front; late afternoon is better for the long flank. Any season works.

What is hard about it

The interior is frequently shut, and a good number of visitors travel out here and see only the outside — which is worth the trip, but not what they expected. Inside there is very little to look at in the ordinary sense: no paintings of note, no side chapels of interest, one large room. The brickwork has weathered unevenly and in flat grey light the building can look drab in photographs. The clock is a clock, not a window, and you cannot go up the tower except on the rare occasions it is opened.

Common questions

How long do you need at the Sacred Heart church?

Forty minutes is plenty, including the exterior and the interior if it is open. Twenty if you only see the outside.

Can you get inside?

Often only around services or during limited opening hours. Check before you go, and plan the visit so the exterior alone still justifies the trip.

Is it worth going out to Vinohrady for?

If you have an interest in twentieth-century architecture, yes — it is the most important modern church in the city. If not, probably not.

Nearby

Vinohrady Water TowerA neo-Renaissance brick tower above the Vinohrady rooftops