Kladruby Monastery

The Benedictine abbey at Kladruby was founded in 1115 and its church rebuilt between 1712 and 1726 by Jan Blazej Santini-Aichel in the manner he invented and which has no real parallel elsewhere: baroque Gothic, in which Gothic structural forms - pointed arches, ribbed vaults, tracery - are used with baroque proportion and light, producing something that reads as neither and both. At Kladruby he kept the Romanesque plan and raised over it a dome and vaults of enormous height, with a crown motif in the lantern, so the interior soars in a way baroque churches usually do not. The convent buildings beside were designed by Kilian Ignaz Dientzenhofer. After dissolution in 1785 the complex passed to the Windischgraetz family and declined; restoration has been running for decades. There is a summer music festival in the church.

History

The village of Kladruby, whose name comes from the words for log and to chop and was given to settlements of lumberjacks, was founded together with the monastery in 1115, and around 1233 King Wenceslaus I founded a royal town beside it. Power struggles between King Wenceslaus IV and Archbishop Jan of Jenštejn at the end of the 14th century and then the Hussite Wars cost the monastery its influence, and it had to sell off property. Crafts developed in the town at the end of the 15th and the beginning of the 16th century, and in the second half of the 16th century it received privileges from the abbots and from the emperors Maximilian II and Rudolf II. During the Thirty Years' War town and monastery were repeatedly looted and the population fell sharply. Emperor Joseph II abolished the monastery by decree in 1785, and in 1825 the Windisch-Graetz family acquired the former monastery and turned the building into a brewery (Wikipedia, Kladruby (Tachov District)).

What to look for

• Baroque Gothic - Santini's own idiom, pointed forms with baroque light.
• A vaulted crown - the dome and lantern raised over the Romanesque plan.
• Dientzenhofer's convent - the monastic buildings beside the church.
• A restoration in progress - work continuing after two centuries of decline.

When to go

April to October. Half a day.

What to expect

Guided tours only, seasonal, and restoration means some areas are closed or scaffolded. The village is small with limited services. The church is cold. Concert dates change the opening.

Nearby

Stribro is five kilometres away; Plasy monastery is north-east.