Liberec (German Reichenberg) is a statutory town in northern Bohemia and a regional town in the Liberec region. It has approximately 105,000 inhabitants and is thus the fifth largest city in the Czech Republic. Together with the neighboring Jablonec nad Nisou and the surrounding municipalities, it forms a wider settlement agglomeration; Liberec is a founding member of the Nisa Euroregion, and since 2004 its capital.
By train
There are direct train connections from Ústí nad Labem,
Pardubice, Dresden, Harrachov, Frýdlant v Čechách and Zittau. From
Berlin and Brandenburg you can travel very cheaply with the Euro-Neisse
ticket valid from Spremberg (price 13 euros, in the Czech Republic 160
CZK ("Jizdenka Euro-Nisa").
Connections from Prague are
relatively time-consuming - buses are a better alternative here.
By bus
Bus connection during the day every hour to and from Prague
(Cerny Most, terminus of underground line B); Duration approx. 1 hour. 1
x daily direct bus from/to Berlin (Flixbus).
In the street
From the direction of Prague, Liberec can be reached via the four-lane
E65 motorway. (D10) Those coming directly from Germany usually exit the
A 4 at symbol: AS 89 Bautzen-West and then take the B 6 and the
subsequent B 178 via Löbau to Zittau. What is unusual is that the
Friedensstraße border crossing in Zittau does not lead directly to the
Czech Republic, but first to Poland. After two kilometers you reach the
Czech border.
Various buses and trams operate in Liberec. Tickets cost 20 CZK and are valid for 40 minutes. Tram lines 2 and 3 are of particular interest to visitors to the city. They connect Horní Hanychov (cable car to Jested, ski area) - railway station - town center - museum/gallery - botanical garden and ZOO/Lidové sady (starting point to the Jizera Mountains).
One of the symbols of the city is the Liberec town hall, a
Neo-Renaissance building from 1893 that replaced the old town hall from
1599–1603 (originally a Renaissance building with a tower and shield by
the builder Marcus Antonio Spazio de Lancia), whose floor plan is
indicated in the paving of Dr. E. Beneš.[17] A wider symbol not only of
the city, but also of the region is the hotel and transmitter on Ještěd.
Another important monument is the Liberec castle, built in the 1680s by
Rederny and expanded in the first decade of the 17th century, including
the castle chapel, whose still-preserved Renaissance interior is one of
the most valuable sacred spaces in the city. The oldest surviving
buildings are the so-called Valdštejnská houses in Větrná Street from
1678–1681. On Zámecké kopci (375 m above sea level) there are the ruins
of Hamrštejn Castle, above Liberec you can also find Liberecká výšina, a
restaurant and an observation tower built in 1900–1901. In 1771, the
so-called Šolc house, a one-story wooden house, was built on the bank of
the Lužická Nisa, where today the administration of the Jizera Mountains
PLA is located. The Neo-Renaissance former residence of the Liebieg
family of textile industrialists from 1897, i.e. the Liebieg villa, is
located in the valley of the Harcovského brook. On the other hand, near
the town castle, it is possible to visit Liebieg's villa, also built in
the Neo-Renaissance style between 1871 and 1872, where the Regional
Gallery in Liberec was located until the end of 2013 (since 2014, it can
be found in the former municipal spa, when it was renamed the Regional
Gallery Liberec ).
There are many Neo-Renaissance buildings in
the city, especially the F. X. Šalda Theatre, built by Viennese
architects Fellner and Helmer in 1882-1883. The theater curtain comes
from Gustav Klimt. Furthermore, the city baths from 1901–1902 or the
savings bank building, built in 1888–1891 according to a project by
Miksch and Niedzielski. The main facade faces Felberova street, the
longer side facade faces the park. The three-storey house is raised on
the east side by a basement completed in 1891 by A. Bürger. The house is
Neo-Renaissance, the exterior is divided by pilasters and half-columns,
it has an ocher color thanks to the Hořice sandstone cladding. The
entrance is decorated with two Tuscan columns that carry a triangular
shield supported by triglyphs and metopes (a slab of Doric frieze,
usually with relief decoration). The author of the sculptures on the
facade is R. Weyr. At the corners of the attic there are obelisks
removed from the old town hall. In the interior, there are columns with
shafts of polished Mauthausen granite and capitals of Tsar marble, a
marble staircase with a metal artistic railing. The ceilings are
decorated with plaster and the walls with marble stucco, both of which
have medallions of personalities who contributed to the construction of
the savings bank.
In Liberec, however, there are also documents
of baroque and classicism. These are houses, for example, on Sokolovský
(before the war and just after the Second World War), Masaryk Square
(No. 264 from 1793, classicist with a columned portal and balcony, the
so-called Appelt House), on Barvířské Street (No. 122 from 1800 with
curved attic with sculptures of the four seasons; No. 46 around 1820,
Classicist-Empire style with a portal), Růžová Street (No. 299
Classicist with a gable), Dr. Square E. Beneše (no. 14 from 1796,
classicist with a gable and rich stucco decoration, the so-called
Kraus's house), Kostelní street (no. 7 from 1784–1785, classicist
building of the archdeaconry), Moskevská street (no. 10 classicist with
arch; no. 14 from 1800, classicist), České bratří square (no. 24, 25, 26
and 35 from 1796–1797, all classicist, two with rich stucco decoration)
or Božena Němcová (no. 70 after 1800) , classicist). Since 1823, today's
Square Dr. E. Beneš was located by the Empire Neptune's Fountain, which
was moved to Neruda Square in 1925, only to return to its original
location in 2010.[20] But the original statue of Neptune is kept in the
museum.
The North Bohemian Museum from the years 1897–1898 is
also an important building with a prismatic tower (a copy of the tower
of the original Liberec town hall), in front of which on Masaryková
street there is a bust of T. G. Masaryk, unveiled by Přemysl Sobotka in
2010 for the president's 160th birthday. The dominant feature of the
lower center of Liberec is the building of the Regional Office of the
Liberec Region. With a height of 78 meters, it is the tenth tallest
building in the Czech Republic and the tallest building in the Liberec
region (excluding the tower); it has 30 floors, on the 17th floor there
is an observation deck. A well-known building in the center of the city
was Hubáčk's Ještěd department store with a "beehive" shape in plan
view, distinctive non-traditional yellow ceramic tiles and steel
cladding, which was demolished in 2009 and gradually replaced by the
buildings of the new Forum Liberec shopping center.
There are
many churches in Liberec, for example:
Church of St. Anthony the
Great – originally a one-nave building, rebuilt in 1579 into a brick
three-nave church
Church of the Finding of the Holy Cross -
considered the most valuable church in Liberec. It was originally a
cemetery church, built (on the site of the original cemetery chapel of
the plague burial ground from 1680) in 1695–1698 and later rebuilt in
1753–1756 in the Baroque style. It is a hall building with a rectangular
presbytery, oratories, sacristy and a baroque library (built in 1759),
the facade is wavy and the church has two prismatic towers. Inside there
is a rich late-baroque decoration, the ceiling frescoes from 1761 depict
the legend of the finding of the Holy Cross by the Empress Helena, they
were restored in 1864. Next to the church there is a column of the
Virgin Mary from the years 1719-1720 from the workshop of Matyáš Bernard
Braun and a niche chapel of the Way of the Cross from years 1854–1855
with the Chapel of the Holy Sepulcher from 1772, which was built
according to the model of the original Church of the Holy Sepulcher in
Jerusalem, or in Görlitz.
the church of the Divine Heart and the
former Voršilek monastery and school - built in neo-Gothic style in
1896, the monastery now houses a polyclinic
Church of Saint Anthony
of Padua
Church of the Mother of God U Obrázek
church of st.
Boniface - in Dolní Hanychov
Church of St. Mary Magdalene –
neo-baroque church from 1910–1911, hall building with side chapels,
semicircular presbytery, open vestibule and residential extension
(Capuchin residence) in the garden
church of st. Vincence of Paula –
in Perštýn, from 1864–1868, in neo-Romanesque style, nave building with
a facade with two towers, a portal and a dome
Church of the
Visitation of the Virgin Mary – a late Empire church in Staré Harcov
from 1858–1860
church of st. John the Baptist - in Rochlice, founded
at the beginning of the 17th century as an Evangelical replacement for a
medieval wooden church. It is a Baroque building with a presbytery
ending in a semicircle and a tower in the west. After a fire in 1800, it
was modified and the tower was built again. The church houses the tomb
of the Appels from 1746. The furnishings are Baroque and
Neo-Renaissance.
Of the defunct church buildings, the most
important was the Old Synagogue in Liberec, burned down by the Nazis
during Kristallnacht, but in its place, the New Synagogue was built in
2000 as part of the Regional Research Library, the so-called Building of
Reconciliation. In 1976, the neo-Romanesque evangelical church (after
the Evangelical Church of the Czech Brethren was forced to transfer it
to the city free of charge in 1973) was also blown up due to general
dilapidation and neglect of basic maintenance, built according to the
plans of Gustav Sachers on České bratří square in the years 1864–1869.
The Liberec crematorium on the so-called Monstrance Hill is the
oldest in Bohemia. The building, designed by the architect Rudolf
Bitzan, was completed in 1916, but due to the opposition of the monarchy
and the Catholic Church to cremations, the first cremation did not take
place here until October 31, 1918. The crematorium and its history
served as the subject of the German-written novel Jaroslav Rudiš
Winterberg's last journey .
The Garden of Memories park was
created on the site of the defunct cemetery on Ruprechtická Street,
where some listed objects of a sepulchral nature were relocated.
Zoologická zahrada Liberec, Lidové sady 425/1. Tel.: +420 482 710
649. The Liberec Zoological Garden is the oldest garden in the
historical territory of Czechoslovakia. It was created in 1919. It can
be reached by tram lines 2 and 3. Admission costs €5 in winter/summer,
children, students and people over 65 pay €3. Depending on the month,
the zoo is open from 8 or 9 a.m. until at least 4.30 p.m. (longer in
summer).
Botanická Zahrada Liberec, Purkyňova 630/1. Phone: +420 485
252 811 . The Botanical Garden is about 2 kilometers north-east of the
center of Liberec and can be reached by tram lines 2 and 3 via the
“Botanická-ZOO” stop. The city's zoological garden is in the immediate
vicinity. The area of the botanical garden covers about 1.5 hectares.
Admission is 140 CZK, children and students 70 CZK. It is open from 8
a.m. to 4 p.m. (winter) or 6 p.m. (summer). barrier-free
Oblastní
gallery Liberec, Masarykova 723/14. Phone: +420 485 106 325 . The
Liberec Regional Gallery offers permanent and temporary exhibitions of
Czech and European art in the halls of the reconstructed former City Spa
building. As an art museum, the gallery is one of the five largest
galleries in the Czech Republic. The focus is on art from Bohemia,
Moravia and Silesia from the last 5 centuries and the Heinrich von
Liebieg collection. An interactive exposition is intended not only for
children. The gallery can be reached by tram lines 2 and 3
(museum/gallery), admission is 80 / 40 crowns, open daily 10 a.m. - 5
p.m., Thursdays until 7 p.m., closed on Mondays.
Hotel Radnice, Moskevská 18/11. Phone: +420 485 105 257.
There is a hospital where there are also doctors who speak foreign languages.
Liberec is located approximately 91 km north-northeast of Prague and
99 km north-northwest of Hradec Králové. The city is located in the
Liberecká Basin of the Žitav Basin between the Ještěd-Kozák Ridge in the
south and the Jizera Mountains in the northeast. The foot of the town
hall is at a height of 374 m above sea level, the highest point of the
city cadastre is the peak of Ještěd (1012 m above sea level), the lowest
is the Nisa level in the northern part of Machnín (325 m above sea
level). on which the Harcovská dam is located. Natural bodies of water
are ponds: for example Vesecký (so-called Teich), Kačák (Zabák) in
Krásná Studánka or Seba pond (dyke) in Janov Dola.
Until 1939,
Liberec covered an area of 6.2 km², which today represents the
historical center of the city. After the annexation of 11 municipalities
on May 1, 1939, the city grew by another 23 municipalities in 1954,
1963, 1976, 1980 and 1986. After 1989, on the other hand, four
municipalities separated from the city. The area of the city cadastre
is thus 106.09 km². Of this, 35.2% is agricultural land, over half of
which is meadows and pastures. Two-thirds of the non-agricultural land
is forest land (total 39.9% of the area).
Apparently, at the end of the 13th century, a settlement began to
emerge on the trade route from Bohemia to Lusatia, at the ford over the
Harcovský potok, where merchants could rest after the difficult crossing
of the Ještěd ridge. The first mention of this village is from 1352
(original name Reychinberch). At that time, Liberec was insignificant
against neighboring Hrádek nad Nisou or Frýdlant.
The first
significant owners of the surrounding area were the Bieberštejn family,
free lords originally from Saxony. However, the development of the city
was due to the Rederns, free lords originally from Silesia, who founded
the Liberec castle with a beautiful chapel, hospital and other
buildings, and during whose reign Emperor Rudolf II. in 1577 he elevated
Liberec to the status of a city. Since then, the symbol of the Redern
family has been on the coat of arms of the new town - a silver chariot
wheel. Kateřina from Redern also gave the impetus to the construction of
the town hall in the years 1599–1603. At the same time, the first stone
buildings already determined the character of the city.
When the
Rederns were forced to leave Frýdlantsko and Liberec after the Battle of
Bílá hora, this estate was acquired by Albrecht of Valdštejn, later Duke
of Frýdlant. He commissioned the city to increase the production of
cloth, in which he clothed his army. He also founded New Town in the
area of today's Sokolovské náměstí built with half-timbered houses.
The last three of these "Valdštejnské domky" (built, however, only
around 1680) remain in Větrná Street. After the duke's death, Liberec
fell to Count Matyáš of Gallas, whose family came from the borders of
today's Carinthia and Italy.
The golden period for Liberec
occurred in the 18th century with the development of the textile
industry. First, the original guild production was transformed into a
manufactory, when 800 clothiers, 480 journeymen and more than 1,000 of
their assistants worked in Liberec. Liberec thus became the largest
manufacturing city of the Kingdom of Bohemia, and its importance was
further increased by the transformation of manufactories into textile
factories. At the beginning of the 19th century, a number of
representative buildings were built in the city corresponding to its
importance as the second largest city in Bohemia; On December 21, 1850,
Liberec gained the status of a statutory city, which made it the second
most important city in Bohemia from an administrative point of view,
after Prague. This period was the golden age of the city, many luxurious
villas, modern schools were built, the railway from Pardubice and Žitava
was introduced to the city in 1859. At this time, the industrialist
Johann Liebieg founded the factory Johann Liebieg & Comp. (later
Textilana). In the city there were 3 consulates, 50 textile factories
and 60 metal factories, including the RAF car factory. A new town hall
and theater were also built at the end of the century. Liberec was a
predominantly German city with a 7% Czech minority. World War I ended
the prosperity. At the time, a prison camp for more than 40,000 Russian
and Italian soldiers was established on the site of the Ostašov
district.
The ethnic composition of the city became a problem
after the creation of Czechoslovakia in the autumn of 1918. So that the
Sudeten Germans would not find themselves in a state where their city
would be controlled by the Czechs, they declared the province of
Deutschböhmen in the northern borderland with its own government,
currency and Liberec as the capital. Their efforts to join Germany or
Austria ended when the new Czechoslovak army occupied the territory
almost without a fight in December.
Decree No. 68/1923 of the
President of the Czech Land Political Administration of April 6, 1923
deprived the Liberec municipality of the competence of the district
office, and the territory of the city, formed at that time by only five
central districts (Staré Město, Nové Město, Jeřáb, Perštýn and
Kristiánov), was connected with the surrounding by the political
district of Liberec-venkov to the political district of Liberec, which
practically ceased to be a statutory city, although it formally remained
so. In 1935, the Sudeten German Party (Sudetendeutsche Partei - SdP),
whose leader was a native of Vratislavice nad Nisou, Konrad Henlein, won
the elections in Liberec. After the Munich Agreement in October 1938,
the Sudetenland fell to the German Third Reich and almost the entire
Czech population had to go inland. Liberec became the capital of the new
Sudeten county (Gauhaptstadt) and the seat of the viceroy. On May 1,
1939, the so-called "Great Liberec" was created by the merger of the
suburban municipalities of Rochlice, Horní Růžodol, Dolní Hanychov,
Janův Důl, Františkov, Růžodol I, Staré and Nové Pavlovice, Ruprechtice,
Starý and Nový Harcov, with a population of 70,000. The Second World War
did not significantly affect the city, but it forced changes in the
structure of industry. During the last days of the war, semi-official
banknotes worth 20 Reichsmarks were issued in Liberec. After the end of
the war, the vast majority of the original population was displaced
within two years.
In 1945, Liberec became a full-fledged statutory city again. It
ceased to be so after the administrative reform of 1949, but became the
center of the then Liberec Region. This region was abolished in 1960 and
Liberec thus became only a district town within the North Bohemian
Region administered from Ústí nad Labem. In August 1968, Polish
occupation troops of the Warsaw Pact passed through Liberec. Among other
things, this incursion in the city caused the death of 9 innocent
victims, whose memorial is today located in the town hall, and the
destruction of the facades of houses on Náměstí Edvard Beneš. The
invasion also caught Václav Havel and Jan Tříska in Liberec, who
participated in the free broadcasting of Liberec radio.
After the
Velvet Revolution, Liberec became a statutory city again in 1990. After
the collapse of the textile factories, the structure of the industry
changed, new industrial and commercial zones were created and Liberec
became the center of the new Liberec Region.
According to the 1921 census, there were 34,985 inhabitants living in
2,514 houses, of which 18,453 were women. 4,894 inhabitants claimed
Czechoslovak nationality, 27,929 German and 130 Jewish. 29,139 Roman
Catholics, 2,725 Evangelicals, 173 members of the Czechoslovak Hussite
Church and 1,312 Jews lived here. According to the 1930 census, 38,568
inhabitants lived here in 3,072 houses. 6,314 inhabitants claimed
Czechoslovak nationality and 30,023 German. 30,285 Roman Catholics,
3,294 Evangelicals, 889 members of the Czechoslovak Hussite Church and
1,392 Jews lived here.
Since the end of World War II, the
population of Liberec has continued to increase. In 1985, it exceeded
the hundred thousand mark, then the number of Liberec citizens began to
decrease, in 1998 it fell below the hundred thousand mark, but seven
years later there was a turnaround and in 2009 it returned to the number
of one hundred thousand cities. It reached its largest number so far,
104,802 inhabitants, at the beginning of 2020. In addition, over 10,000
people also commute to the city for work and study. The agglomeration of
Liberec – Jablonec nad Nisou itself, which in addition to these two core
cities includes another 45 surrounding municipalities, has approximately
220,000 inhabitants.
The climate of Liberec is determined by its location in a basin between a pair of mountain massifs. Because these mountain ridges are an obstacle to the flow of moist Atlantic air, the city receives quite a lot of rainfall. Their average total is 803.4 mm per year – the wettest month is August with 88.4 mm, the driest is February with 46.2 mm. The average air temperature is 7.2 °C, the warmest month is July with 16.2 °C, the coldest is January, when the average temperature is −2.5 °C.
The origin of the city's name is still unclear, it used to be the
subject of many discussions, often even ethnically colored. Probably the
oldest given name is Reychinberch from 1352 and Raichmberg (1369). The
suffix -berg means "mountain" in German and reich "rich". However, since
the settlement at that time did not abound with special wealth, the name
is considered to be either a wish of the settlers or a name brought from
Germany.
The Czech equivalent of the name was created by
corruption: Rychberk (1545), Lychberk (1592), Libercum (1634), Liberk
(1790) and finally Liberec (1845). In the event that two letters "r"
followed each other in one word, one of them was changed to "l" in the
vernacular, the name of the settlement Liberk (originally Rehberg or
Richnberg) near Rychnov nad Kněžnou also underwent a similar
development. The suffix -ec entered the word through the adjective
"Liberecký", whose original form "Liberkský" was difficult to pronounce.
The coat of arms of the city of Liberec consists of a silver shield,
on which is a ruby-colored fortification wall with a pair of towers and
battlements. The golden hinges of the gate, suspended on silver hinges,
are open, the upper half of the gate is closed by a golden lattice with
silver-forged tips. In each of the towers there is an open gate above
which there is an embrasure and an oblong window divided by a cross. The
towers have a ruby-colored canopy topped with a golden poppy with a
blue, fluttering flag. On the wall above the gate hangs a shield of
azure blue color with a silver wheel, which was the emblem of the Redern
family. On the battlements between the towers stands a straddled golden
lion with a crown on its head, red tongue and raised tail.
The
sheet of the city flag is divided into two horizontal stripes, red at
the top and white at the bottom. The leaf has a width to length ratio of
2:3. In its mast half is the city emblem in the Spanish shield.
The previous city logo was made up of stylized silhouettes of two of the
city's most important buildings: the town hall and the Ještěd hotel,
where the left part of the town hall and the right part of the hotel are
combined into one whole. The logo was supplemented with a small
inscription Liberec. The current logo, used since 2017, consists of a
simple upward arrow ^, which symbolizes Ještěd, and a distinctive
inscription Liberec.