haphazard fashion to the façades of flat-dwellings, without any change in the inner arrangement, so that the outer decoration is of no significance. It was only after revolutionizing the old plan and arrangement of the house by modern methods and modern inventions that architects were able to reform their art in compliance with the new ideas. Modern principles of hygiene brought about, though by very gradual stages, new forms of house planning, a new arrangement of spaces and a new method of fitting the house into the framework of the street. These requirements of modern life being satisfied, the private house could become a thing of art. Yet, for want of important orders, progress under this head in Prague and the provincial towns was exceedingly slow.
Until 1870, Czech architects worked side by side with their colleagues of German nationality at the Prague Polytechnic. Literature and public institutions could be regarded as belonging to both nations alike. But with the ardent patriotic impulse of 1870, each nation found in architecture its own stock of original ideas to be followed, and of special themes to be carried out. Thus the architects separated, each group forming its own programme, with a view to creating its national art. With the advent to power of Czech society, the ambition of building on a more lavish scale made itself more and more felt in Czech circles, and with the enrichment of economic life in Bohemia, architects were faced with a whole series of problems in town planning to be solved. It was naturally in Prague, where the Czech element had recently come to dominate the German minority, that the new architectural impetus was displayed in its greatest intensity and brilliance. After remaining too long behind the times, the city of Prague now hastened to ensure her growth in size and beauty. She girded herself with suburbs, demolished her fortifications, improved her means of transit,
