FRÝDEK CASTLE

The beginnings of the Frýdek Castle go hand-in-hand with the existence of the city of Frýdek and was founded in the period after 1327. In 1636 Jiří of Oppersdorf became the proprietor of the Frýdek domains. He and his successors initiated the building of the lookout pavilion. All the outer façades of the castle interior were also harmonized, and the first courtyard saw the completion of the first floors in all the building wings. The castle and grounds were kept in working order after they passed into ownership by the Habsburgs in 1797. The most important construction at this time involved raising the ceiling of the Knights? Hall and laying on a coat of stucco. Modifications on the exterior look of the castle did not take place until the end of the 19^th century and the beginning of the 20^th. After 1918 the office of the receivership of the Frýdek district was located in the castle, along with the Pension Board, the regional supplementary military command and the regional bureau for the care of disabled war veterans. A museum has been located in the spaces of the castle since the beginning of the 1960s. The castle includes an adjacent park where a cylindrical object, used as an ice depository, is located. The 16^th-century chapel was built on a semicircular ground plan and includes a basement with a barrel vault.  

HLUBOKÁ STREET 

Hluboká, or Deep Street, is among the oldest in the city of Frýdek and, as a commercial route starting in the 14^th century, it used to be the busiest. Its name most likely derives from the steep drop from today?s Castle Square to the former Leskovecké (Hukvaldské, Dolní) Gate. The importance of Hluboká began to wane in the second half of the 17^th century after Zámecká (Castle) Street was built. Hluboká Street then ceased to be a major thoroughfare and was used only by the inhabitants and craftsmen who lived along it. A pilgrimage started in Frýdek at the beginning of the 18^th century and grew with the building of the Church of the Visitation of the Virgin Mary during the middle of the 18^th century. The route and procession to the church wended mainly through Hluboká Street. Hluboká was a location for taverns, stores and craftsmen workshops, as well as a brewery and city spa on the site of the so-called Knight?s House (today?s Langova House) built in 1796. A circular fountain was located on the northern side of the Knight?s House, which supplied water to the residents of Hluboká Street. Semi-wooden houses nos. 77, 78, 79 on the lower end of the street are a significant feature, offering an example of intertwined rural and urban architecture. This should have been reconstructed during the second half of the 20^th century, but that of course never occurred. In 2005 the basements of these houses were demolished and replicas of the old mercantile homes built in their place.

The statue of the Virgin Mary holding Jesus in her arms and standing on a half moon and on the head of a snake symbolizing the devil was supposedly commissioned in 1665 by Count František Eusebia of Oppersdorf. It was placed outdoors on a sandstone column in a location that was dubbed ?At the limeworks?. In 1706 a wooden chapel was built around ?At the limeworks? with the statue inside it. Since the small size of the chapel was not adequate enough to accommodate large amounts of pilgrims, a decision was made to build a new and more spacious tabernacle on the same location. The cornerstone was laid on 4 October 1740 but the consecration did not occur until 1759. The basilica was designed by Bartoloměj Wittwer, the architect for the Bishop of Breslau. Seven side chapels are adorned with paintings by Eliáš Herbert  of Uherské Hradiště, while the paintings above the confessionals in individual chapels are the works of Antonín Berger of Nový Jičín. Underneath the chapel of the Holy Cross lies a crypt bearing the remains of the Pražma clan. In 1957 these remains were gathered and relocated to a crypt below the nave of the church. The main altar was designed by Jan Schubert of Opava and completed by the sculptor Ondřej Schweigl of Brno, who also took part in adorning the organ that was built between the years 1763-1765 by Josef Šebestián Staudinger of Andělská Hora. A New Renaissance chapel called The Heart of Our Lord, dubbed ?Roman?, was built in the nearby park between 1880-1882, and the fourteen chapels along the Way of the Cross between 1876-1877.

The building that houses today's Frýdek-Místek magistrate was built by the Frýdek Savings Bank. In 1898 the board of the savings bank decided to use the occasion of the Jubilee celebrating 50 years on the throne of Franz Joseph I to construct, as a memorial to this anniversary, a new building. Not until 1900 was the building permit issued. The new building went into use on 1 December 1902 and included, in addition to the savings bank, office spaces, the district and revenue authority, as well as a café with an Art Nouveau interior designed by the Viennese architect Hassmann. A decision was made in 1929 to finish building the remaining two wings. The project for the new work on the savings bank was entrusted to Antonín Grund and the additions completed in 1930.

TRAIN STATION BUILDING

The Ostrava-Frýdlant railway line went into service in 1871. Originally there were two plans under consideration for laying the track, on the left or right bank of the Ostravice River, meaning in Moravia or in Silesia. This led to the establishment of two commissions, with the members of the Moravian commission including representatives of the Místek district authorities, the cities of Moravian Ostrava and Místek, while the Silesian commission included representatives of the Těšín chamber in addition to Silesian communities. Each party was naturally promoting its economic interests in the project. When the Silesian option won out, the representatives of Místek, Koloredov and Sviadnov decided to protest. They argued that by building the Moravian route several construction projects would cease, thereby lowering overall costs, and they also proposed building the new train station in Koloredov. Despite these protests, the originally approved plan for the track went through and Místek could only take comfort in the name of the new train station, which would be called Frýdek-Místek.

The Místek Savings Bank opened its doors in 1871 with offices located together with the town hall in building no. 39. The close proximity of the savings bank to the city lasted until 1 January 1892, when the city officials who were running the savings bank were transferred over to the bank, which had to wait for its own building until the very end of the 19^th century. It was an ostentatious one, however, built between 1897-1898 according to a design by the Viennese architect Josef Hudetz. The façade is adorned with the allegorical figures of thriftiness and diligence created by Josef Skotnice. This native of Raškovice and graduate of the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna represented his motif in the figure of young girls, one of whom holds a box into which she tosses a saved coin (Thrift), and the second holds a spindle, long the symbol of diligence.

THE FORMER MÍSTEK CREDIT UNION

The constituent general meeting of the National Credit Union of Místek took place on 25 October 1886 at the tavern Mořice Deutschera. The credit union was housed in the home of its first chairman, Felix Šubert, until 1893 and from then until 1922 in the home of the chairman of the Místek Foundation Vincenc Procházka. It was then moved to the ground floor of National House. Since even those spaces were not sufficient enough, the construction of a new representative building was approved in 1925. The cornerstone was laid on 8 August 1927 and the ceremonial opening of the new building of the credit union took place on the occasion of the 10^th anniversary of the founding of Czechoslovakia on 28 October 1928. The builder of this late Constructivist structure was the Prague architect Bohumil Hübschmann. The façade shows four figures in human clothing created by Franta Úprka and based on the theme ?How the elderly saved money?.