Prague:

I think that is what I find so enchanting about Europe in general. Buildings regularly fall apart amid 300 years of maintenance. Chunks will fall out in the middle of the night. One is constantly reminded of your mortality, how things can rapidly regress if you don't stay on top of them. Allegorically, that life does not go on forever standing still like a photograph, take it by the reins, and do it today ! Very defiantly we are given statues holding up walls, only to have chunks of that façades missing. Permanence and decay. So amid every corner we are reminded what we must do, things we have forgotten, likewise places to dream about, the wonderful hidden silent contrasts of times different movements.

Czech / Prague ( Praha ) was one of my favorite cities if that is possible ? Home to over 350 spires. Now I understand what the Impressionists were painting. Small, tiny, intimate narrow streets are the norm, charmed if you will in these intimate spaces.

Survival: Once capital to the Roman empire 1335, it has been a much fought over territory throughout time. The Austrian Hungarian Empire took over in 1526. That it survived all of these wars and rulers, is a miracle ! Possibly it is that is so central to all of Europe that all of these trading cultures flocked and grew here so well. Art Nouveau to Baroque, Renaissance, Cubist, Gothic, Neo-Classical and ultra-modern, all co exit here. Amiable, hospitable, in spite of all how many times that it fell.

Jews were eliminated here during WWII from a height of 66,000 before the war, to less than nothing after. Here you will see the Jewish cemeteries it was before the war, stacked 4 deep in these tiny spaces. They never had time to pack.

American's really don't understand how terrifying it is to be conquered, raped, bombed, to have you cities destroyed over, and over. To have your buildings and history removed, your people exterminated, all because your front door, is next to my next door. The feeling less than as a people as you have been defiled once again, the looser. Survival, you just have to do it, over and over and over ! For me, that is why these eastern Europeans are so industrious, and work so hard in their lives today.

In the last 70 years Chex has seen 4 separate insurgents. Nazi Germany in 1939, several hundred stray american bombs during WW II, Russia, Socialism and the Cold War starting in 1945, the revolt uprising suppressed in 1967. Finally handed back to them in 1993. Sweet freedom at last ! Even Hitler & Stalin respected Prague's treasures, as they never took history lightly. The Charles bridge with over 30 statues, the Clock tower in Astrological wonder ticking for over 600 years, it has kept Europe in time, every hour on the hour, crowds flock to see if old man death will ring his own bell.

Alphonce Mucha, and art novae and the poster as a medium came from here. You can see it in his work and the details, romanticism with the figure as it is all over the cities details in it's walls, clocks and columns. Home to Kafka the writer, and Dvorak the musician. Reflections of a vibrant city. The Velvet revolution began here in 1998.

All photos property of Strodl 2008.