Prague
The John Lennon Wall
August 2017
The John Lennon Wall stands on Velkopřevorské náměstí in Prague’s Malá Strana, on a wall enclosing the Maltese Gardens and owned by the Sovereign Military Order of Malta. After John Lennon was killed on December 8, 1980, an improvised memorial appeared there. Flowers, candles, photographs, Beatles-related inscriptions, and political messages followed. Communist authorities repeatedly painted over the wall, but new texts and images returned, turning it into a site of youth dissent and informal expression in Czechoslovakia. The deteriorating wall was repaired in the late 1990s, while the tradition of adding new messages continued.
By 2017, when these photographs were taken, the wall had become a dense and continually changing surface of overlapping murals, spray-painted messages, drawings, stickers, and poems. Earlier compositions and portraits were routinely obscured by later layers.
Current Context
In 2019, the wall was renovated and declared a memorial place. It is now managed as a curated open-air memorial: commissioned artworks occupy much of the surface, visitors may add messages only in designated areas using pencil, marker, or chalk, and spray painting is prohibited. The wall continues to connect John Lennon’s legacy with peace, freedom of expression, and remembrance of youth resistance under communist rule.
