Mirror Labyrinth on Petřín Hill
The labyrinth on Petřín Hill was built as the Czech Tourist Club’s pavilion at the Prague Jubilee Exhibition in 1891. It originally stood near the corner of the Industrial Palace at Prague’s Výstaviště exhibition grounds, but two years later it was relocated to Petřín Hill. A mirror labyrinth leading to a dioramic picture was installed in the right section of the building in place of a panorama of diapositive slides. The picture depicted a memorable scene from 1648, when Swedish forces attempted to seize the Old Town via Charles Bridge, but the city was successfully defended thanks to the resistance of students and teachers from a Jesuit college. The elaborate combination of a three-dimensional foreground with a flat painting of the Hradčany district, which creates a real-life impression, is the work of the brothers Adolf and Karel Liebscher as well as Vojtěch Bartoněk. The inspiration for the Petřín labyrinth was obviously the Prater in Vienna. The second room, known as the Hall of Smiles, was furnished in 1911 with various convex and concave mirrors, which humorously distort people’s reflections. The labyrinth has 31 ordinary and 14 twisted mirrors, but originally there were only 35. The wooden building was completely refurbished in 1975.
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