destroyed. They were later replaced by department stores. On 16 January 1969, student Jan Palach set himself on fire in Wenceslas Square to protest the Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968. On 28 March 1969, the Czechoslovak national ice hockey team defeated the USSR team for the second time in that year's Ice Hockey World Championships. As the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic was still under Soviet occupation, the victory induced great celebrations. An estimated 150,000 people gathered on Wenceslas Square, and skirmishes with police developed. A group of provocateurs then attacked the Prague office of the Soviet airline Aeroflot, located on the street. The vandalism served as a pretext for reprisals and the period of so-called normalization. In 1989, during the Velvet Revolution, large demonstrations (with hundreds of thousands of people or more) were held here. Wenceslas Square is lined by hotels, offices, retail stores, currency exchange booths and fast-food joints. Many strip clubs also operate around Wenceslas Square. Wenceslas Square is also a popular place to spend the New Year's celebrations, another popular option are terraces near the river. The Christmas markets (Vánoční trhy) are held here every year from early December to the first week of January. Reconstruction A reconstruction of the Wenceslas Square has been underway since 2020. The lower part is expected to be completed in spring of 2022. The upper part (from Vodičkova street) is expected to be completed in 2023. It should result in uniformed paving, wider sidewalks, bicycle paths and new alleys. Also, tram traffic will return to the upper part of the square. Art and architecture The two obvious landmarks of Wenceslas Square are at the southeast, uphill end: the 1885–1891 National Museum Building, designed by Czech architect Josef Schulz, and the statue of Wenceslas. Other significant buildings on the square include: Antonin Pfeiffer and Matěj Blecha's "Palác Koruna" office building and shopping center, #1–2, 1912–1914, with architectural sculpture by Vojtěch Sucharda Ludvík Kysela's "Lindt Building", No. 4, an early work of architectural constructivism the BAŤA shoe store, No. 6, 1929 Matěj Blecha and Emil Králíček's "Adam Pharmacy", No. 8, 1911–1913 Jan Kotěra's "Peterka Building", No. 12, 1899–1900 Pavel Janák's "Hotel Juliš", No. 22, 1926 Alois Dryák's "Hotel Evropa", #25–27, 1872, 1905 redesign, with architectural sculptor Ladislav Šaloun Antonin Wiehl's "Wiehl House", No. 34, 1896 the "Melantrich Building", No. 36, 1914, where Alexander Dubček and Václav Havel appeared together on its balcony