d3a / stanislav fiala

during our last architecture lecture at the beginning of may, eva wanted to show us a film but the sound was not working, so she gave us the option of going home or asking her about anything else we might be interested in.  the day before i was reading about stanislav fiala and the architecture partnership d3a, and i asked if their buildings are worth seeing up close.  eva made a strange face and said, "yes...i, i can tell you where to find them..." and wrote down some addresses for me.  i thought, "ok, so she isn't a big fan of their work."  then she said, "well, actually,  stanislav fiala is my husband."  and in fact she and the other lecturer are working on a book together about d3a, and she had the pages on file with her, so it turned into a very interesting impromptu slide lecture!

d3a is responsible for a lot of the modern architecture and urban planning in prague.  yesterday i went in search of the muzo center (above) all the way in the hostivař district of prague 10, but i could not find it at the address i had written down.  after walking around the area i finally gave up, and got on a tram home.  about three stops later, i saw a corner of something that looked like something that might be the muzo center.  i got off on the next stop, walked toward where i thought i saw something, and sure enough, there it was, in the strašnice district.  that's two stories of pure chance! 

žižkov

i was wandering around žižkov after paying a visit to the area around hotel olšanka, a strikingly unattractive mammoth of soviet architecture which my mom and i stayed in on our first visit to prague in 2004.  actually everything in sight - the high-rise buildings, the people, the stores - have an outdated, worn-out, depressing look.  but before running away i did see, there in the distance, the largest equestrian statue in the world:  it is the one-eyed 15th century czech general jan žižka, looking over the city of prague.  he and his horse are made of bronze and stand at 9 meters (30 feet) tall (22 meters (72 feet) if you include the pedestal) on vítkov hill.

olšanské hřbitovy

in žižkov (prague 3), there is an old, seemingly endless collection of twelve cemeteries called olšanské hřbitovy.  one of them, called prague cemetery, is where the victims of the 14th century plague epidemic are buried in mass graves.  there is a cemetery reserved for orthodox and greek catholics, and a jewish cemetery, where franz kafka is buried.  also here is jan palach, a student who committed suicide by self-immolation on václavské náměstí in 1969, in protest of the soviet occupation of czechoslovakia (the square on which my school is - náměstí jana palacha - is named after him).  i went on a quiet walk among old and forgotten graves, some completely overgrown with vines.  i didn't look for any of the famous graves - in fact i didn't think of them until now - but i think maybe that is better, as in search of them i would have missed everything else.

honey in the sun

i found one i found one!  i went to divoká šárka, again like yesterday, and sitting on the very top of the cliff, i noticed one of my yellow fields on a hill far far ahead.  i thought, i have all day, and set off in what was approximately the right direction, since when i got down i could no longer see it.  i walked through fields and hills and streets, and just when i came out onto a road and was about to give up, i noticed a sliver of yellow to my right.  i turned into a small pathway, and came out into this giant sea of yellow.  from the center of it, i could see the hill i was sitting on when i spotted it.  one, two, three, four... despite all letdowns, i am lucky like a four leaf clover.

plzeň

n. and i went on a day trip to plzeň today, home of the pilsner urquell beer brewery and a charming little place.  located in western bohemia, about one hour southwest of prague, it was founded in 1295 and looks a lot like dresden; even the trams are yellow.  we climbed the steep spiral staircase to the top of bartolomějský cathedral, the highest tower in the czech republic.  remember my hope for something beautiful to happen to me?  yes, the wind was beating us so hard and the town looked so lovely, and the name of the bell inside the tower is prokop.  i have wanted for so long to see for miles and miles, from above,  and today i did, little cars and people down below, then precious toy houses with orange roofs, and beyond, the greenest fields and forests...

bicycle, bicycle

n. got out her rollerblades and i borrowed a neighbor's bicycle, and we went riding through stromovka park in the sunshine.  oh, how i missed bike riding.  this one was a real cool retro one, that r. bought for 300 crowns at kolbenova.  in germany it felt like pedestrians are in the minority, because it seemed everyone - children, students, seniors, businessmen - are on bicycles.  in the czech republic, it seems that everyone is on rollerblades.

kolbenova

this morning we went to kolbenova flea market, where people with fanny packs and golden teeth sell all manner of junk: guitars without strings, one-eyed dolls,  forgotten soviet toys.  although after j. made a joke about the toys being from chernobyl, i got a little paranoid.  there was one small red elephant that i liked, but his ear was threadbare and disintegrating.  the vanishing elephant.  however, i did get very very lucky because i found a book illustrated by květa pacovská, about whom i wrote one of my first entries.  since i came to prague, i have not been able to find anything, anything with her illustrations, and here were two books!  i had to leave one behind, but the one i bought is lovely and i only paid 50 crowns ($2.50) for it.

valdštejnská zahrada

it is april, and one of prague's "secret gardens" is now open to the public.  valdštejnská zahrada (wallenstein garden) has two male peacocks that move about freely.  the beautiful white one was gracious enough to open his tail, but the colored one was stingy and only screeched at the top of his little peacock lungs for no apparent reason.  peacocks are very loud.  i have never ever seen a white one before;  i thought him even more striking than the other one.  beautiful bird.

that green gentleman

more obscurity that goes unnoticed.  after somehow stumbling upon an interesting website, this morning i left in search of someone called zelený muž ("green man") around the old town.  a green man (or "foliate head") is an architectural decorative element consisting of a face surrounded by leaves.  the green man can be found all over the world and is quite mysterious but generally believed to come from pagan traditions dealing with vegetation and the coming of spring.  

above are some of prague's green men that i was able to find.  the bottom right is part of the richly ornamented side of the karolinum, the oldest university in the czech republic (1347). he is very special because he is the type called disgorging head, or one that spouts vegetation from his mouth.  they all have very distinct personalities, and the aforementioned website has very specific and touching descriptions of prague's green men, quoted from václav cílek.

divoká šárka

more about divoká šárka: i was feeling enthusiastic all week about going somewhere green, with a backpack (it was a very simple dream), and we went to this big beautiful valley.  just twenty minutes by tram away from home, there are streams, wide fields, tall forests, and steep cliffs, and grass so green it hurts your eyes to look at it.  the name of the park means "wild šárka," the name of a beautiful amazon from czech mythology, who was the right-hand woman of vlasta, the ruler of a matriarchal society.  when war broke out between the women and the men, who lived on the opposite side of the river, vlasta sent šárka to destroy ctirad, the men's general.  šárka managed to lure ctirad to his death, but the men won the war anyway.  and whether she had fallen in love with him, or because death was a preferable alternative to surrender, in the end she committed suicide by jumping from one of the cliffs.

bílá sobota (white saturday)

because today is white saturday in the czech easter tradition, i woke up thinking that on this day i would like to find the color white.  this thought left my mind by the afternoon, and then n. and i went hiking in divoká šárka, a large natural reserve in prague 6.  we spotted a six-pointed building in the distance and decided to walk towards it.  after crossing a field and climbing a steep and slippery hill, we walked to the star-shaped renaissance summer palace (built 1555-56) called hvězda ("star").  

the palace is white and inside, the walls and ceiling are pure white, with ornamental carvings.  and the place where the palace stands is called bílá hora ("white mountain"), where the battle of the same name took place in 1620, during the thirty years' war.  and all around, tiny white flowers cover the forest floor like a carpet.  then i remembered my morning idea and found it touching that the color white found me first and drew me to itself.

faustův dům

(illustration of faustův dům by jiří šlitr, which i incidentally found in a book today)

the "faust house" (karlovo náměstí, 40) did not strike me as very mysterious in today's sunny weather, but it is actually the subject of many strange legends about its eccentric inhabitants.  despite its rather modern appearance (fully renovated in 1769) the mansion dates back to the 15th century.  the faust house changed owners through the centuries: prince vaclav of opava in the 15th century, edward kelley in the 16th, knight ferdinand antonín mladota of solopysk in the 18th; all of these inhabitants practiced alchemy, and i am sure that the mysticism surrounding this house resulted from centuries of outsiders' curiosity.

the strangest person to live in this house was a karl jaenig, in the 19th century. he is said to have been an avid collector of skulls, a functioning gallows, and other death-related objects. he inscribed funeral text on the walls and even allegedly slept in a coffin.

another story tells of a student who needed a place to live and settled in the then-abandoned mansion.  he found dark magic books and tired something out i suppose, because afterwards he was carried away through the ceiling by the devil himself!  which is why, in a swoosh of 19th century romanticism, it was not hard to fabricate (?) the building's connection with the dr. faustus legend.

the world is quiet here: vyšehrad

i went to prague 2 to vyšehrad, the "other" castle, situated on a hill over the river and completely free of crowds.  the castle dates back to the 10th century, but the saint peter and saint paul basilica, the twin-spired neo-gothic cathedral in its center, was built in the late 19th.  behind the cathedral is the vyšehrad cemetery, the final resting place of  antonín dvořák, bedřich smetana, alfons mucha, and other famous czechs. 

many of the headstones have intricate detailing and the mausoleums surrounding the central plots are very beautiful, especially those decorated in art nouveau style:

simple, simple golden lines, it's perfect.  i just came here to walk around in a quiet place; i did not expect to find so many interesting colors, shapes, and patterns to think about.

folkin' around

i found a hidden gem today. the historické muzeum, a branch of národní muzeum tucked away in a little white chateau in a corner of the park kinského zahrada, houses a precious collection of czech costume, toys, embroidery, and other traditional crafts. each room is dedicated to a different part of czech traditions, such as crafts, feasting, customs of spring, summer, christmas, birth and death, and wedding.

 everything is in czech, but between buying a student ticket, turning in my coat, and being given directions to where everything is in the museum, i am happy to say that i did not have to resort to english for one second.  the museum is quiet and not very big, but was clearly put together with such love and care, that i felt so happy and calm to carefully observe each beautiful object, to the sound of traditional music in some rooms, and simply chirping birds in others.  i want to come back here every weekend until i have drawn every item on display!

tančící dům

i walked far today, to the previously unexplored nové město. another perspective and another mood of prague. here is tančící dům ("dancing building"), another important example of modern architecture in the city. it was designed by frank gehry and completed construction in 1992. all of the houses around it are from the 19th century, as were the houses that used to be on the corner where the dancing building now stands. the corner houses were destroyed on february 2nd, 1945 by an ally bomb that was meant to hit dresden. it stayed wrecked until 1948, and afterwards many proposals were made to do something about reconstructing the buildings at this busy intersection.
the reason for the way the left side of the building curves inward in the middle is that during the planning stages, neighbors living in the house next door complained that they would lose their view of prague castle. they had to be accommodated.

at first the building was difficult for czechs to get used to. i think it is very beautiful and what i like most about it is that despite its modern edge, it is respectful to and embraces and echoes the richness of shape and detail of its 19th century neighbors.
i even accidentally found the house that inspired gehry to give the windows on his building the effect of "popping out," which creates the illusion of an additional layer on the façade. it is located one block behind and to the right of the dancing building, on the corner of gorazdova and trojanova streets.

sidewalks

studies of mosaic sidewalk designs in different parts of prague.

slon du jour

"by what latitude could we,  abandoned thus to the fury of symbols,

be occasionally a prey to the demon of analogy,

seeing ourselves the object of extreme overtures, of singular, special attentions?"  i don't know, but i feel it all of the time.  i went farther into stromovka today, because i think that spring is here, and found another train tracks beyond the park.  a very cute blue and orange train came out from the left.  it was called "city elephant."  and on the way back i noticed that all of the trees in this park have eyes.

zlatý anděl

this morning i took the metro to smíchov district in prague 5 to see the zlatý anděl ("golden angel") office building. the building was designed by the french architect jean nouvel and was completed in 2000. nouvel noticed that there are many houses in prague with painted façades, and wanted to find a modern way of "painting" the building.  the crossroads at which the building stands is called anděl, so the picture nouvel imagined was of an angel guarding over prague.  

in his search for a "modern angel," nouvel collected thousands of images, and finally settled on the one played by german actor bruno ganz in wim wenders' 1987 film "wings of desire."  using a photograph that was printed in dots and applied directly to the glass with the help of a grid, the figure of the angel was placed in front of a panoramic image of prague.  across the photograph, in red text, are printed quotes from authors and poets that are connected with the city.  

last week's modern architecture lecture was entirely about zlatý anděl, from the idea to the final execution, and i felt that i had to see it myself. the look of the building changes with the time of day. i looked at it from different directions, which was difficult because the intersection is very busy with people, cars, and trams, and i must have been the only person looking up at it. this is an important lesson i am learning about prague: you miss so much here if you don't look up.

the tea club

there is a clock tower outside of my window.

if one goes up and up and up the staircase inside at night,

one finds a tea club.

we went up yesterday to the warm carpeted rooms, where we took off our coats and shoes at the door and put on the provided slippers, and sat on the floor around a low table drinking turkish black tea and eating halva.

mystery somewhat solved

it took me a very long time to find any information about this house, since it doesn't even seem to have a name. but what i was finally able to find out is that stromovka park was first conceived in the 13th century as a hunting grounds for bohemian kings. this house, which sits on the park's highest point, was a hunting lodge built in the 15th century. in the early 19th century, the lodge was rebuilt in the neo-gothic style. it now houses the newspaper and periodical archive of the national museum.