The Prague Crossroads - Saint Anne’s Church

The former Church of Saint Anne is a single-nave Gothic monastery church built for the Dominican nuns in the 14th century (1319–1330) on the site of an older church and rotunda of Saint Lawrence. Located in the heart of the Baroque complex of the former Dominican convent (dissolved at the end of the 18th century), the church was desanctified in 1782 and its the premises served as, among other things, a residential building, a printing press for the publisher of the Journal of the Austrian Royal and Imperial Postal Service, and a paper store. Since 2004 the church premises have been administered by the Vize 97 Foundation set up by former Czech president Václav Havel and his wife Dagmar. Vize 97, which supports the celebrated conference Forum 2000, uses the space of the church as a spiritual, cultural and intellectual center called Prague Crossroads. The former convent complex itself is currently owned by the National Theatre, used as a technical facility. In 2011, Prague Crossroads hosted the Prague Quadrennial’s architecture section.