Prague Journal

Wednesday, May 11, 2005.

We met Ales and Marta at Vyšehrad this afternoon, for a walk around the old castle grounds and to visit some of the cubist houses along the river. Czech architects developed Cubism into a distinctive style in architecture. It was revolutionary in appearance both because of the new shapes facades could take, being different from contemporary and historical styles and because of the use of (reinforced) concrete structures. In this sense Cubism was richer in content than Modernism, using the facade as a plane of expression. The plans of the buildings usually were less radical than those developed by Modernism, but stand out from the traditional buildings in their distinctive angles and graceful dimensions. There are several cubist buildings near Vyšehrad, all designed by architect Joseph Chochol. My favorite is the villa on Libusina. Libusina is now a busy street, so the villa has been converted into an office building instead of a residence. The apartment building on Neklavova is particularly graceful, especially since it’s positioned prominently on the corner. After our walk we went to a nice restaurant near the old castle gate. It’s quite cold tonight—Marta says these cold days in May are called the ice men – but at least it’s stopped raining.

posted by JWinn @ 10:39 PM