The Schebek Palace hosts conferences, seminars, board meetings and receptions for up to 130 guests in ten restored palace rooms and a digital media center. The palace stands at 7 Politických vězňů in Nové Město, central Prague, one block from the city's main commercial square, and is home to the CERGE-EI economics institute.
Seminars and company events
CERGE-EI rents its rooms for business meetings, conferences, seminars, workshops and lectures. The largest room, the Salon de Diane, is the ballroom: 80 in conference layout or 100 theater-style, with a raised stage, PA system and projector. On the fourth floor, the Digital Media Center has a 110-square-meter lecture room for 80 theater-style, 24 in conference or Geneva layout, or 20 in a U, with professional audiovisual equipment and a 55-square-meter foyer for registration and coffee breaks. Six smaller rooms, the Oak, Jade, Ivory, Marble, Pearl and Fawn rooms, each seat 35 theater-style and 24 to 26 around a conference table, which suits parallel workshops. The Bronze Room takes 12 at a Geneva table.
Weddings and receptions
Receptions use the connected salons on the main floor. The Salon de Diane takes 130 for a cocktail and 100 for a gala buffet, and it opens into the Salon de Venus and the Salon de Mars. The Salon de Venus, with antique furniture and oil paintings of 19th-century Prague, takes buffets of 60 and works as a display room for hors d'oeuvres. The Salon de Mars, a corner room, takes 70 for a cocktail and can also join the Marble Room. Corridors can be furnished with lounge chairs and cocktail tables. The site does not offer weddings.
Rooms and capacities
Salon de Diane: 130 cocktail, 100 theater, 100 gala buffet. Salon de Mars: 70 cocktail, 60 gala buffet, 40 conference. Salon de Venus: 60 gala buffet, 26 Geneva. Digital Media Center lecture room: 80 theater. Oak, Jade, Ivory, Marble, Pearl and Fawn rooms: 35 theater and 30 cocktail each. Bronze Room: 20 gala buffet. Floor plans and seating layouts are available from the venue.
Catering
The palace has no restaurant. A small kitchenette next to the Salon de Diane serves catering teams, so food is brought in by a caterer. Ask CERGE-EI which caterers already know the building.
History and setting
The site goes back to the 14th century and King Charles IV. An earlier palace there was built for Kristof of Wallenstein, and after a fire in 1757 the grounds served as a convent hospital, an orphanage and a freemasons' lodge. The present palace was built in the 19th century for Baron Jan Schebek, a railway builder and entrepreneur, in sandstone and marble, as a small-scale echo of Versailles. It was sold in 1890 to an Austro-Hungarian bank, later passed to the State Bank of Czechoslovakia, and in 1963 went to the Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences for its Institute of Economics. Guests climb a marble staircase over two floors, with frescoes, neoclassical statues and a red carpet, and the Salon de Diane has frescoes by Victor Barvitius.
Getting there
The palace sits on a quiet side street near Wenceslas Square. Praha hlavní nádraží, the main railway station, is a short walk away, and Václav Havel Airport is reached by car or by public transport.
