The seminary building

Among the buildings originally intended for religious use is the former ‘New Archbishop’s Seminary’, built in the French Neo-Renaissance style in 1892, the work of architect Vojtěch Ignác Ullmann and his colleague and relative Bedřich Münzberger. Ullmann, a native of Prague who was the leading figure in the project team, also had personal ties to Příbram. He spent the autumn of his life at a small chateau in nearby Dubenec and subsequently in Příbram, where he died on 17 September 1897 and is buried in the local cemetery.

The Příbram seminary bears all the hallmarks of Ullmann’s architectural vision. It is characterised by a subtle sense of the monumentality of its large features and shines through the balance of the building’s clearly structured decoration.

In connection with the expansion of the Mining Academy in Příbram, in 1895 the school was granted free use by the town of the building known as the ‘old seminary’, dating from 1885–86, later referred to as ‘Building Two’ in Mariánské údolí, now Dr Josef Theurer Square. The students who had been living there were moved to the new seminary.

This building, originally designed to accommodate 140 boarding students and subsequently modified several times for other purposes, particularly in the second half of the 20th century, was situated within the harmonious setting of the Municipal (Jiráskovy) Gardens.

The rear part of the building, which also housed a chapel, faced the seminary’s garden. The imposing façade, with its tower and a connecting double window between the first and second storeys, faced the chestnut-lined avenue of Jiráskovy sady, offering a characteristic view of Svatá Hora. The building is a textbook example of High Historicism, featuring abundant use of pure Neo-Renaissance stylistic elements, with an emphasis on the delicacy of detail, the sophistication of the cornices connected by columns, the window jambs and so on.

From 1922 to 1846, with the exception of the Nazi occupation, the seminary housed the rector’s office of the Příbram Mining University; then, from 1946 to 1950, the building was once again used by the archbishop’s seminary, and subsequently, until 1990, by the district national committee and, briefly, the district office. It was during this period that the building underwent the most alterations, often carried out in a highly unprofessional and insensitive manner (e.g. the demolition of the chapel). Despite this, it remains one of the town’s most interesting listed buildings.

Source: PaedDr. Josef Velfl: Cultural Monuments of Příbram