Prague's tallest, and most divisive, building
At around 216 metres, the Žižkov Television Tower is the tallest structure in Prague, and one of the most polarising — a stack of three concrete cylinders in bare Brutalist style, built in the final years of communist rule and finished just after the Velvet Revolution. It was never universally loved for its architecture alone, which is exactly why what happened to it later stands out so much.
The babies
In 2000, artist David Černý — the same sculptor behind several of Prague's more unconventional public artworks — installed a set of giant, faceless bronze babies crawling up the tower's exterior. They're strange, slightly unsettling, and completely memorable, and they've stayed in place as a semi-permanent installation ever since, turning an otherwise purely functional broadcast tower into one of the more talked-about sights in the city.
Visiting
An observation deck near the top gives sweeping views over the whole city, a genuinely different angle to the castle-hill or Petřín viewpoints covered elsewhere on this site — from here, Prague reads as a much bigger, more modern city than the postcard version of the historic centre suggests. The tower is a working broadcast facility as well as a visitor attraction, so exact deck access can vary; check current opening information before making a special trip.
Getting there
The tower sits in Žižkov, an easy tram ride from the centre, and pairs naturally with the rest of that neighbourhood guide — the pub-dense streets around its base are as much a reason to visit the area as the tower itself.