Dominican Monastery and Church of Our Lady of the Rosary
1912–1913

The unmistakable space of Jiráskovo Square, one of the focal points of the Prague (now East) Suburb, began to form at the beginning of the last century. Along with the whole suburb, it gained an important landmark shortly before the World War I: the Dominican Convent with the Church of Our Lady of the Rosary. For Pilsen, the whole complex is of extraordinary importance not only in terms of architecture but also urbanism.

The impulse for its construction was the need to establish a "seat" of the newly established parish, which was only the second one in Pilsen, for the area of the Prague Suburb and the nearby villages of Božkov, Hradiště and Lobzy. Although the city council started debating its foundation as early as 1897, the new parish did not receive official confirmation until 1908. Two years later, the city decided that the parish would be administered by the Dominicans of St. Giles in Prague.

The Order started to take action immediately in the matter of the construction of a new church and monastery, approaching the Pilsen building company Müller & Kapsa, which was just completing the Redemptorist Church in Chodské Square at the time. Nevertheless, the Dominicans did not realise the Neo-Gothic complex according to the design of the reputable company in the end because of high costs. They instead chose a project by Anton Möller, an architect from Varnsdorf, who was highly experienced in designing sacral buildings. The construction of the building was entrusted to the Prague firm of the architect and builder Eduard Sochor, who had realised and designed many church buildings and in several cases did so in cooperation with Möller (for example St. Joseph's Church in Rybniště).

The large Catholic complex occupies most of the south eastern part of the rectangular square and its size corresponds to the area of ​​almost two blocks of houses. It consists of a church dedicated to the Virgin Mary of the Rosary with a high bell tower, a convent building with the seat of the parish adjoining the church from the southwest, and a spacious ornamental and utilitarian garden. The church building is not strictly oriented to the east with the presbytery – its situation respects the urban design of the area with a chequered street network and the longitudinal axis of the square running in the northwest-southeast direction. The main facade of the church and the monastery with the primary entrances (including a separate entrance to the tower) turn to the middle of the space towards the centre of Pilsen.

Typologically, the church is designed as a three-nave basilica with matronea, a transverse nave and a polygonally ended presbytery. The unusual mansard roofing, as well as the chasuble shape of the windows, are inspired by Baroque architecture. The stepped panel gable refers to the German (Saxon) Late Gothic style. The “pure” bright interior with a flat “coffered” ceiling in the three-nave concentrates several elements with forms that repeat the shape of Neo-Baroque windows – such as the organ cabinet, matroneum arcades, wooden oratory etc.

From the west the church is adjoined by a high and massive prismatic tower with a pyramid roof, a clock from 1923 and four bells, which bear names: Thomas (1913), Wenceslas (1952), Joseph (2004) and Dominic (2005) – the original Joseph bell from 1599 has been taken down and is located in the interior of the church now. The entrance to the tower is lined with a stone portal, whose form reflects the influence of Art Nouveau architecture. The tower is directly connected to the three-storey convent object, designed on an inverted L-shaped ground plan. The corner part of the longer wing facing the square is crowned by a "German" stepped gable of a very similar shape to the one Anton Möller applied to the gable in the church front. Smooth plastering of the facades gave all parts of the complex a certain degree of modernity; nevertheless, the exterior of the church, the tower and the monastery shares also a traditionalist stone cladding of the plinth. The ground floor of the monastery housed administrative and service rooms, and the first floor housed the living space for the monks: bedrooms, library, dining room, parish priest's apartment, etc. The convent building is connected to the church by a covered corridor.

The project of the ornamental and utilitarian garden with a rectangular network of paths was developed by Karel Sousedík in 1914. The large garden is lined with a segmentally undulating enclosure wall. Its construction was preceded by a debate in which the Občanská beseda (“Citizens Society”) club demanded separation of the garden with an iron fence; the Dominicans, on the contrary, wanted a brick wall. In the end, both sides agreed on a compromise – a wall with latticed openings in each wall field.

The building was consecrated in October 1913 by the Prague Archbishop Lev Skrbenský, although some of the interior furnishings were not yet in place (pews, side altars, etc.). During the World War II, Pilsen Redemptorists and Franciscans were forced to move into the monastery; later the building served as a Wehrmacht hospital and in May 1945 as a convalescent home for concentration camp prisoners. After the dissolution of the mother monastery in 1950, the Dominican administration of the church was discontinued. The monastery was used by a number of municipal institutions, especially the District Institute of National Health (OÚNZ) Pilsen North, and part of the garden was made available to the nearby kindergarten and primary school. The Dominicans resumed the operation of the monastery and the administration of the church after 1989.

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