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Czech Cubist architecture

The original Cubist architecture is very rare. Cubism was applied to architecture only in Bohemia (today Czech Republic) and especially in its capital, Prague. Czech architects were the first and only ones to ever design original Cubist buildings. Cubist architecture flourished for the most part between 1910 and 1914, but the Cubist or Cubism-influenced buildings were also built after World War I. After the war, the architectural style called Rondo-Cubism was developed in Prague fusing the Cubist architecture with round shapes.

In their theoretical rules, the Cubist architects expressed the requirement of dynamism, which would surmount the matter and calm contained in it, through a creative idea, so that the result would evoke feelings of dynamism and expressive plasticity in the viewer. This should be achieved by shapes derived from pyramids, cubes and prisms, by arrangements and compositions of oblique surfaces, mainly triangular, sculpted facades in protruding crystal-like units, reminiscent of the so-called diamond cut, or even cavernous that are reminiscent of the late Gothic architecture. In this way, the entire surfaces of the facades including even the gables and dormers are sculpted. The grilles as well as other architectural ornaments attain a three-dimensional form. Thus, new forms of windows and doors were also created, e. g. hexagonal windows. Czech Cubist architects also designed Cubist furniture.

The leading Cubist architects were Pavel Janák, Josef Gočár, Vlastislav Hofman, Emil Králíček and Josef Chochol. They worked mostly in Prague but also in other Bohemian towns. The best-known Cubist building is the House of the Black Madonna in the Old Town of Prague built in 1912 by Josef Gočár with the only Cubist café in the world, Grand Café Orient. Vlastislav Hofman built the entrance pavilions of Ďáblice Cemetery in 1912–1914, Josef Chochol designed several residential houses under Vyšehrad. A Cubist streetlamp has also been preserved near the Wenceslas Square, designed by Emil Králíček in 1912, who also built the Diamond House in the New Town of Prague around 1913.