Petřín lookout tower opens

2016

Petřín Lookout Tower, built for the 1891 Jubilee Exhibition Place: Petřín hill, above Lesser Town Figures: Klub českých turistů, Czech Tourist Club (commissioner) · Vratislav Pasovský, club president · engineers František Prášil and Julius Souček The Klub českých turistů sends a delegation to the Paris World's Fair of 1889, partly to walk up Eiffel's new tower. They return with the idea of an Eiffel of their own. Funds are raised within months; design completed in 1890; iron forged in Bohemian works. The tower is built at one-fifth Eiffel's scale, 63.5 meters of latticework on the crest of Petřín hill above the Lesser Town. With the hill's 327 meters factored in, the platform sits roughly level with the top of the original. It opens on August 20, 1891, two months into the Jubilee General Land Centennial Exhibition. The exhibition is the country's industrial demonstration to itself and to the empire: glasshouses on Stromovka, a pavilion for every industry, a fountain by František Křižík with electric light playing on the water at night. The subject dates from 1891; this photograph was taken in 2016.