Ostrava - Vítkovice: Walk over Vítkovice
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Vítkovice – Town under the Chimneystacks
The first written record of the village of Vítkovice dates back to 15 June 1357. The village was located on the Ostravice River. In 1828 the first puddling plant for forging of iron was built near the village and the village began to grow. At the turn of the 20th century the Rothschilds, owners of the Vítkovice Iron Mill, built New Vítkovice, the not yet fully appreciated urban jewel, on a green field/prom scratch near the old village. Let us take you for a sightseeing tour of Vítkovice, the town under factory stacks, where every street ends with a factory, pipe or pole. The George Pompidou Centre in Paris is covered with piping, but our town is interwoven with it. The pipes not only connect the factory buildings, but they also vault over the residential district where normal people live. This is why Vítkovice is unique with its charm of industrial Art Nouveau, for ornaments made of bricks, for the embroidery of poles, where instead of baroque spires there are dozens of smokestacks aiming at the sky.
Take a stroll among the still preserved houses made of fair-faced brickwork. You will come to understand the interconnection of the industrial plant and the life of the local people, if you take a one-hour walk among the ten main buildings of the town, symbolising all the key areas of the civil life of the times. From the square, with its town hall, you can go to the factory hotel, the gymnasium and the first municipal school for boys. You will learn the history of the first factory hospital on the European continent. You will stop by St. Paul’s church, which is named after the author of the New Vítkovice project idea, Paul Kupelwieser. The strange U-Haus is one type of residential house colony. The factory kindergarten was a revolutionary novelty of its time. The market place symbolises trade and services. The higher elementary and secondary municipal school for girls is on the other square of Vítkovice. The Czech House will tell you about the original village of Vítkovice and Czech history. ???in it??? Genius loci of Vítkovice welcomes you.
