Frank Gehry & Vlado Milunić’s Dancing House (Tančící Dům)
If you ever visit Prague, the famous Nationale-Nederlanden building, nicknamed Dancing House (Tančící dům) or “Fred and Ginger,” is hard to miss. It sits in the middle of a densely built section of Prague, surrounded by other structures that are nearly all the city’s standard Baroque or Art Nouveau styles.
It was designed by Croatian-Czech architect Vlado Milunić and Canadian-American architect Frank Gehry on a vacant riverfront plot of great historical significance. Its site was the location of a house that was destroyed by the U.S. bombing of Prague in 1945 during World War II. The plot and structure lay decrepit until 1960 when the area was cleared.
The building’s deconstructivist dancing shape is supported by 99 concrete panels, each a different shape and dimension. On the top of the building is a large twisted structure of metal nicknamed Medusa. To see more photos of the quirky architectural marvel, visit the Tančící dům | Dancing House location page.
(via yamikisara)
Budapest and Prague, 1937. This clip is from a home movie in the Prelinger Archives. Both cities were about to go through hell. Ruled by a right-wing dictatorship, Hungary foolishly allied itself with Hitler, and lost many soldiers fighting the Russians. Unwilling to send its Jews to the Nazi death camps, Hungary’s government was overthrown and the Germans marched in. In just a few months, over 400,000 Hungarian Jews were murdered by the Nazis. The city was also bombed by the Allies during the war. Finally, a terrible battle took place as the Germans defended Budapest from the Red Army, and much of the city was ruined. And after all that misery, Hungary was turned into a client state by Stalin, and a Communist dictatorship ruled for 40 years. Not until 1989 did Hungary finally become a free country. The music is by Liszt, of course.
Czechoslovakia was a democracy until 1938 when Britain and France sold it out to the Nazis in a futile attempt to appease Hitler. Prague was relatively untouched by war damage, but was occupied by the Germans from 1939 until 1945. Within a few years after the end of the war, Czechoslovakia also came under a Communist dictatorship, lasting until 1989.
(via budapestphotos)
