Adria Palace: Rondocubism on Národní
Why is it significant?
Take in the whole corner building in front of you: battlements on the roof, a tower, stacked rows of windows framed in heavy, rounded stone, almost like a Venetian palace that has been working out. It does not look like anything else on this street, and that was exactly the point.
Key Facts
| Place | Adria Palace: Rondocubism on Národní |
|---|---|
| Address | Jungmannova 31, 110 00 Praha 1, Czechia |
| Geo Coordinates | 50.08210, 14.42200 |
| Part of Walk | Gilded Leaves and Crystal Facades: Prague's Art Nouveau & Cubist Walk |
| Generated | Generated |
Take in the whole corner building in front of you: battlements on the roof, a tower, stacked rows of windows framed in heavy, rounded stone, almost like a Venetian palace that has been working out. It does not look like anything else on this street, and that was exactly the point.
This is the Adria Palace, built between 1922 and 1925 by Pavel Janák and Josef Zasche for an Italian insurer from Trieste, the Riunione Adriatica di Sicurtà. That is where the name Adria comes from. Janák had been one of the fiercest young Cubist architects before the First World War. After 1918, in the brand new Czechoslovakia, he and his friends softened the sharp crystals into rounded arcs and cylinders, and invented what is often called Rondocubism, or the national style... an architecture meant to look Czech rather than Austrian.
Look at the window frames: they are not flat surfaces but rhythms of half-circles and segments, almost like the folds of a fabric. It is heavy and theatrical, and some critics of the time found it far too much. But stand here for a minute and it becomes oddly hypnotic, a building that looks carved rather than built.
The Adria also played a role in one of the great nights of Czech history. The theatre inside the palace was long associated with Laterna Magika, the multimedia theatre born from the Czechoslovak pavilion at the Brussels World Expo in 1958. In November 1989, during the Velvet Revolution, the Civic Forum led by Václav Havel set up its headquarters in that theatre, and for days the future of the country was argued over between the stage sets.
Somewhere behind these walls, reached through the passages of the block, hides the quiet Franciscan Garden, one of the best rest stops in the New Town. For now, simply turn the corner into Jungmannovo náměstí, the little square behind the palace. Look for the strangest street lamp you have ever seen, standing right beside a tall church gate.