The building at Londýnská 39

The first written mention of Londýnská 39 in Prague 2, the plot of land on which the Asklepion Clinic stands today, dates back to 4 October 1879.

On this day, record was made in the cadastral documents of Alois Bures being the owner of the plot of land, later a honorary burgher of Královský Vinohrady, deputy mayor, owner and constructor of many houses in Vinohrady. At that time however, Londýnská had a different street name - Tunelová. This was because a railway tunnel already led under the street at this time, connecting Wilson Station with Nusel Station. A classic apartment block was erected on this location in 1883, which was purchase seven years later by Frantisek Pacák, the owner of a factory producing smoked goods, and from him in 1905 by Josef Baum, a successful businessman in the field of meat wholesale who had another floor added onto the building.

The Baum family lived here until the 1940s when the Nazis murdered most of the adult members of the family and confiscated the house. The son, Jirí Baum became a leading Czech traveller and zoologist in the 1930s. He could speak eleven languages and many dialects. He travelled around most of the world, taking copious and unique photographic material everywhere he went. He specialised in the study of spiders and devoted 250,000 exhibits to the National Museum alone. Some newly discovered species even bear his name, e.g. Carabus baumi OB and Hydrobaumia Hal. At the beginning of World War Two, he returned to his homeland where he joined the antifascist resistance. He was arrested by the Gestapo in 1943 and died one year later in a concentration camp in Warsaw.

The house was confiscated by the Communist regime, underwent extensive reconstruction from 1979 on and in March 1985 the new complex of the Gynaecological-obstetric clinic on Londýnská was officially completed. The maternity hospital won acclaim not only for the quality of its care and superb equipment, but it was also the first maternity hospital in the country where the so-called rooming-in was introduced, i.e. the possibility for mothers to have their babies with them in the room. However, in under ten years time the maternity hospital was abolished and the building fell into decay until 2004 when general renovation work was begun on the building. This time for the Asklepion private clinic, known since 1994 above all as the most prestigious laser clinic in the Czech Republic. Asklepion moved here form its original address at Ke Karlovu 13 in September 2005. From the time on, Londýnská 39 in Prague 2 with its 3,500 m2 of floor space was transformed into the unique complex housing the Clinic and Institute of Aesthetic medicine, which has no equivalent in the Czech Republic and which is also the largest of its king in Central Europe.