Cubist Houses

On Sunday, Hubert inquired whether I might like to meet him and a Fulbrighter visiting from Sweden to take a look at the cubist houses below Vyšehrad. I was rather tired after having gone to the Croatian art nouveau show at the Obecní dům (which is much to be recommended) and a subsequent fruitless attempt to find coffee (the cafes at the Obecní dům, the Cubist Museum, the design museum, and the Ebel kavárna were all full), but the cubist houses are on my way home, so I agreed to meet them at the house on Neklanova. A couple of years ago, Jesse and I had discovered that there was a new and quite good restaurant in this house, so I persuaded Hubert and Valerie that we should stop for something to drink before seeing the other houses. While the prices have gone up, it is still a nice place to sit. And I should point out that one can only get this kind of view of the house with the wide angle, unless perhaps one could photograph it from the elevated railway tracks.

Down the street and a bit around the corner one finds this elegant house. which looks out at the river and the railroad bridge. My first acquaintance with it, when I was living in the neighborhood, was with the back of the building (or is it technically the front?), shown below.

While this side is the business entrance and presumably is where the mail is delivered, I think it is less agreeable. Or perhaps that's just because the garages next door are not very inspiring.

Considering that I did spend three months living in this neighborhood, it took me an inordinately long time to locate this house and its companions, which are farther down the river than my guidebook had led me to imagine. I now see them pretty much every day from the tram. The pointy items that look like ears do not actually belong to this house, but to the church up the hill at Vyšehrad.

This is more the view one gets from the tram going by.

And this is the farthest south of the houses, which faces toward the tunnel and an attractive building dubiously labeled a nightclub. (Not in photo.) I was dubious enough of the nightclub before Kelly informed me that in German, the word refers solely to brothels and not to places where ordinary people go to dance. I have not yet inquired whether the term takes the English or the German meaning in Prague.

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Prague Czech architecture cubism walks