Kamila Hilberta is best known for the completion of St. Vitus Cathedral

Prague - Architect Kamil Hilbert, whose birth will be 150 years ago on February 12, is most famous for his reconstructions and extensions or renovations of church buildings. The most well-known work of Hilbert is the neo-Gothic extension of St. Vitus Cathedral at Prague Castle, to which he dedicated 30 years of his professional career. In the triforium of the cathedral, there is also a bust of Hilbert, under which it is written, for example, that "in the restoration of St. Wenceslas Chapel, he found his grave and discovered the floor plan of the first rotunda and the second basilica of St. Vitus."

Hilbert was born on January 12, 1869, in Louny, in the family of long-serving mayor of Louny, Petr Pavel Hilbert, and painter Karolina Hilbert-Reifová. His brother was playwright and writer Jaroslav Hilbert. He studied at the Vienna Academy of Fine Arts and after a short stint in his hometown of Louny, he moved to Prague. In 1899, at the age of 30, he was appointed chief builder of St. Vitus Cathedral in Prague after the departure of Josef Mocker, which he completed in 1929. He was then awarded an honorary doctorate from the Czech Technical University in Prague and was named a regular member of the Czech Academy of Sciences and Arts.

In addition to St. Vitus Cathedral, he participated in the reconstructions of church buildings in more than a dozen Czech cities. In his hometown of Louny, for example, he restored the Church of the Virgin Mary, in Mělník the Church of St. Peter and Paul, or the Church of St. Martin in the Wall in Prague. As an architect, he is credited with the Church of St. John of Nepomuk in Štěchovice, the construction of which was completed in 1913 and was solemnly consecrated in 2015. According to his designs, schools, several residential houses, and other buildings were also constructed.

Kamil Hilbert died on June 25, 1933, in Prague at the age of 64 and is buried in the Vyšehrad Slavin.