A Foreign House? / Ein fremdes Haus: During the 19th century, in the process of developing civil and national society, Czechs and Germans found themselves on opposite sides of the barricades. Each nation sought to define and defend its own identity. While the Czechs were gaining increasingly significant positions, the Germans were struggling to preserve theirs. Architecture is one of the most striking witnesses to these efforts, particularly buildings closely connected with the national idea, such as German association houses, German theaters, town halls of German cities, Turner gymnasiums, and Lutheran or Old Catholic churches.\n\nThe book therefore introduces readers not only to the work of Czech German architects but also sheds light on the character of the architecture of towns in the former German speaking areas. Its main goal is to seek an answer to the question of how the architecture of Czech Germans contributed to shaping their national consciousness, specifically in the turbulent period from the Revolution of 1848, called the Spring of Nations, up to the opening of the Jubilee Provincial Exhibition in 1891, by which time only one of the provincial nations, the Czechs, was represented.\n\nWhile in the 1850s it was not yet important whether the project for the Czech National Theater was created by an architect of German nationality, by the end of the century two opposing camps were facing each other. But to what extent were Czech and German architecture truly alien to each other? The publication is released in a Czech German bilingual edition.