The Dancing House in Prague

The Dancing House is the great historic significant building in Prague. It was constructed in 1992 and completed in1996. The Dancing House is located at the corner of Jirasek Square and Rasin Quay alongside the river Vltava. Before the Dancing house was built, it originally occupied by a Neo-renaissance style house from the end of 19th century. The Neo-renaissance house was destroyed during bombing in 1945 and it was empty for several decades. The neighbouring house who is the czech republic president Vaclacv Havel, ordered Vlado Milunic, an architect who has been involved in the rebuilding of Havel’s appartment in the neighboring house.

Afterwards, the Dutch company Nationale Nederlanden agreed to built the Dancing House with almost unlimited budget with an expectation of creating an icon in prague, because at that time the financial is in a excellent state. Vlado Milunic was requested to invite a world renowed architect to join him in the project. At first, Vlado Milunic invited a french architect, Jean Nouvel. In result, Jean Nouvel rejected his invitation because of the small size of the site which is 491 square meters. The rejection will never smash Vlado Milunic’s determination of inviting world renowed architect. After that he invited a famous Canadian-American architect and designer, Frank o.Gehry. Happily, Frank o.Gehry accepted the challenge. From their first meeting in Geneva, both of them starts to elaborate Vlado Milunic’s original idea.

The original idea of Vlado Milunic is that the building consists of two parts which was static and dynamic, and which also symbolize the transition of Czechoslovakia from a communist regime to a parliamentary democracy. After several development and discussion, Vlado Milunic and Frank o.Gehry built a unique and dynamically looking building that seems like a pair of dancer dancing on the riverside. The Dancing House was named “Ginger and Fred”, before The Dancing House is named. They named the building “Ginger and Fred” because it reminding of two famous dancers, a woman and man, which is Ginger Rogers and Fred Astaire dancing together. The Dancing House is deconstructivist architecture style due to its unusual shape. Deconstructivist buildings seems to be have no visual logic.

They also appear to be made up of unrelated, disharmony abstract forms. The Dancing House have two main parts which is the glass tower representing Ginger Rogers, and the other runs parallel to the river representing Fred Astaire. The first parts, glass tower have a “dancing” shape and it is narrow at half of its height and it was supported by curved pillars. The Dancing House is supported by 99 concrete panels and each with different dimension and shape. Whereas, another parts, that runs parallel to the river is design with aligned windows that would make the building seems to be two more addition floors, although it is same height as the neighbouring nineteenth century buildings. Besides, the window have protruding frames leaning in and out, it create a three-dimensional effect. Moreover, the winding mouldings on the facade also create a vision that serve to confuse perspective and diminish constrast with the neighbouring buildings. In addition, one the top of the building have a twisted structure which made up of metal, it have a nicknamed of “Medusa” and also represents the hair of the dancer, Fred Astaire.

The extraodinary and unique building was pointed out that it doesn’t fit into its surroundings, where it is surrounded by various houses with art noveau style. But after several years, when the emotions are over, The Dancing House has its place in the modern Prague. Furthermore, the building was awarded the “Design of the year 1996 award” from the American Time Magazine as well as in the 2005 the Czech National Bank issued a gold coin with the motif of the Dancing House, as the final coin of the series “10 Centuries of Architecture.