A monumental neo-renaissance building of the National Museum no. 1700 indisputably dominates in the upper section of the Wenceslas Square and among the local buildings. It was constructed during 1885-1890, based on design by arch. Josef Schulz (1840-1917). High attention was paid to ordering and making the artistic decoration of the building. The new building of the National Museum was ceremoniously opened on 18th May 1891. Its grandiosity evoked admiration at that time. Well, length of the frontage is 104 m, width of the building is 74 m and height from the fountain water level to the cupola top is 69 m. At the time when the building was completed there were 39 exhibition halls and number of rooms was 235. Another dominant of this area is a riding memorial to the patron of the Czech country, St Wenceslas. An outstanding Czech sculptor, Josef Václav Myslbek (1848-1922) was ordered to make the memorial. The sculptural group of St Wenceslas became his life-masterpiece, he had made it for many years, elaborated numerous preparation projects, designs and models, which changed many times. Myslbek supplemented the main sculpture, placed on a high pedestal, with figures of four saints from Czech country of Přemyslid time, standing on lower pedestals: St Ludmila, St Vojtěch, St Prokop and St Agnes of Bohemia, who had been blessed then. Alois Dryák participated in architectonic adaptation of the memorial and Celda Klouček participated in ornamental decoration. In 1912 the memorial was placed in the site, where it stands nowadays and a year later it was ceremoniously unveiled. However, the memorial was standing there incomplete, without figures of St Agnes of Bohemia and St Vojtěch. These were placed there in 1924. The memorial to St Wenceslas is really a national memorial. Let’s remember how many important historical events took place near that. The memorable date of 28. 10 1918, which has been written in the pavement in front of the memorial, was unveiled on 27th October 1935.
