JÁCHYMOV – gateway to the Ore Mountains

House No. 2 in Jáchymov is one of the most important surviving examples of the town’s original 16th-century urban development. Its present appearance reflects several distinct building phases – from Late Gothic and Renaissance structures through Baroque alterations to interventions carried out in the 19th and 20th centuries. Although the house was repeatedly rebuilt over the centuries, it has preserved a number of valuable historic elements, particularly its floor plan, vaulted spaces and parts of its historic construction. The detailed building-historical survey carried out in 1994 offers a glimpse beneath the present-day surface of the house and shows how its appearance gradually changed over the centuries together with the development of Jáchymov.

Even before the First World War, a new villa district began to emerge on the hillside above the Jáchymov railway station. One of its first houses was Villa Chromý – a representative guesthouse commissioned by Johann Chromý, the brewmaster of the municipal brewery, and built according to a design by Franz Rehn. The house was intended to accommodate spa guests, but today its story continues in a completely different way. After more than a century, Villa Chromý is waiting for its next chapter.

On the hillside above Jáchymov stands a house that has changed its name several times over almost a century, while its characteristic silhouette has remained. The villa of Raimund Mayer, later Hotel Mayer and today Hotel Panorama, was built in 1929 to a design by Franz Rehn. The small villa with its distinctive corner turret soon became a hotel and part of life in the local spa district. Its history, however, is connected not only with accommodation and views over the town, but also with the place on which it stands – close to the former execution site of Jáchymov and the path to Dívčí skok.

At the beginning of the 16th century, Jáchymov underwent an extraordinary transformation. Miners, craftsmen, merchants and entrepreneurs came to the narrow valley beneath the Ore Mountains in search of new opportunities. The silver rush brought enormous population growth and, with it, the need for new houses. Yet no chaotic settlement of temporary buildings emerged here. The preserved town Statutes show that every new house was built according to precisely defined rules that protected not only its owner and neighbours, but above all the functioning of the entire mining town.

On the upper side of Republic Square, close to the mint, stands one of the important examples of Jáchymov’s historic burgher architecture. The corner house No. 21, originally marked as No. 71, closes both the square and the adjoining row of houses. Behind its Late Baroque façade, a much older Renaissance building from the period of the mining town’s greatest prosperity has survived.

House No. 8, known as the Schlik House, ranks among the most significant Gothic-Renaissance buildings in Jáchymov. Although it forms part of an architecturally coherent ensemble of European importance, its present structural condition is critical.

House No. 495 on Hornické Square was once one of the lively hospitality venues of the town around the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries. Its history, however, gradually shifted from a garden restaurant with a bowling alley to a dilapidated structure that was ultimately demolished in 1987.

House No. 133 belongs to the earliest urban fabric of Jáchymov. Featuring a Gothic cellar, a portal from the workshop of Jörg of Bamberg and a preserved historical spatial structure, the building is currently undergoing a sensitive restoration in the spirit of the Renaissance.

The inconspicuous House No. 273 on Náměstí Republiky conceals a surprisingly significant story. It was here that the miraculous statue of the Virgin Mary was discovered after the re-Catholicisation of the town, later venerated in the monastery at Mariánská and today kept in the Church of St Joachim.

House No. 146 is one of the best-preserved Renaissance houses in Jáchymov. It dates back at least to 1555, as evidenced by the date on the portal bearing the initials of its builder, Hans Pock. A remarkable rarity is the preservation of the original Renaissance roof trusses, confirming that the building did not burn down even during the catastrophic fire of 1873.