Dancing House

A symbol of revolution and freedom...

The Dancing House is undoubtedly the most famous building to be erected in Prague following the Velvet Revolution. Its fanciful dancing and floating shape seems to evoke the joyful freedom that engulfed Czechoslovakia after the overthrow of the Communist regime. The space on which the house stands came about tragically – during an air raid in February 1945, an American bomber mistook Prague for Dresden. For the next half-century the plot was empty. The place gained its secret infamy in the 1970s and 1980s. The neighbouring house happened to be where playwright and dissident Václav Havel resided, and he was constantly being monitored by the Communist secret police. It was actually in Havel’s apartment that the first idea of putting up a building as a symbol of the newly acquired freedom was born. The first architect on the project, Vlado Milunić, tried to capture the energy that the whole society felt in November 1989, and to incorporate this into the building.

The final design was done by the renowned American architect Frank O. Gehry who designed the building based on the legendary dancing pair of Ginger and Fred. Some of the interior design was done by the equally renowned architect of Czech origin, Eva Jiřičná.