There Dancing House (Dancing house) Of Prague is one of the most famous buildings in Europe, home to the Dutch National Offices in the centre of the Czech capital. Built between 1994 and 1996 and designed by the architects Frank Gehry And Vlado Milunićis located on the banks of the river Moldavian replacing a building destroyed during a bombing in 1945. The nickname derives from the association between the sinuous lines of the structure and the famous dancers Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers. The building has been at the centre of many debates related to the architectural discontinuity compared to the surrounding buildings.
The history of the Tančící dům
The Dancing House, inaugurated in 1996, was born in an area heavily bombed during the Second World War from the idea of two architects Frank Gehry and Vlado Milunić. The abandoned lot finds new life following the Velvet Revolution. This protest, also called “Gentle Revolution”, was initially born by artists and students (following the fall of the Berlin Wall) under the guidance of Vaclav Havel and ended with the fall of the Czechoslovak Communist Party.
V. Havel himself was elected President of Czechoslovakia in 1989 and later 1st President of the Czech Republic until 2003, he had the idea of commissioning the work to the architect V. Milunić. The design team was also joined by the Canadian architect F. Gehry, who designed the Guggenheim Museum Bilbaobringing with him his own style called “deconstructivist“. This architectural movement is based on the rejection of traditional forms, expressing compositional freedom, playing with materials and volumes, challenging straight lines and classical geometric shapes.
These historical events led the “Dancing House” to be the symbol of rebirth of Prague, which has passed from a communist regime to a parliamentary democracy, that is, from traditional buildings to modern and futuristic buildings.
Why is it nicknamed “dancing house”?
The Dancing House is the daughter of the 900′ and the thought behind this project is to arouse in the observer the idea of movement. Its name derives from the shape of the two towers, one covered in glass with a notable narrowing at half its height and the other entirely in reinforced concretecharacterized by a misalignment of the windows and a metal dome that resembles a bird’s nest. The effect that these two parts of the building create recalls the two famous American dancers Ginger Rogers and Fred Astairehence the name ‘The Dancing House’ with the restaurant “Ginger & Fred Restaurant” inside. The glass structure is the stylization of Ginger, a woman in a skirt, taken by the hips by her companion Fred (reinforced concrete building) in a romantic dance along the river. The dance of the two dancers is transformed into an architectural expression through two different geometries creating the illusion of movement.
The initial project included the creation of a space used as a cultural centre, but the intended use of the structure subsequently changed, ending up hosting numerous offices, a hotel, a restaurant (from which it is possible to enjoy a view of the city) and an art gallery.
The basic concept of the building is the contrast between a figure dynamics and one staticwhich emerges within a city dominated by traditional buildings.
Sources about the Dancing House
