Dancing House, Prague

"Dancing house" is famous contemporary architecture landmark in Prague, built in the site of an apartment building which was destroyed by the U.S. bombing of Prague in 1945 which supposedly happened accidentally as Prague was mistaken for Dresden. 

MAIN FACTS
LOCATION	Prague, Czech Republic
ARCHITECTURE	Postmodernism, Deconstructivism
BUILT	1996
ARCHITECT	Vlado Milunić, Frank Gehry
NICKNAME	Ginger and Fred
RATING (8,55/10)

One of two architects of the building, the famous Frank Gehry called the house Ginger and Fred - after the dancers Ginger Rogers and Fred Astaire as the house resembles a pair of dancers. Gehry himself later discarded his own idea, as he was "afraid to import American Hollywood kitsch to Prague". 

The building consisting of two parts, static and dynamic ("yin and yang"), which symbolizes the transition of Czechoslovakia from a communist regime to a parliamentary democracy. Dancing house was a complex construction project which was financed by the Dutch insurance company Nationale-Nederlanden (ING Bank from 1991 to 2016) - the funding for the building was almost "unlimited". 

The Dancing House won Time magazine's design contest in 1997. It was also named as one of the most important buildings in the 1990s by architecture press. However, as always with such new, experimental projects, the building got a fair share of criticism from architecture purists and conservatives - it has been called inappropriate in the classical city of Prague. The deconstructivist design is controversial because the house disrupts the Baroque, Gothic, and Art Nouveau buildings for which Prague is famous. The style, shape, heavy asymmetry, and material are considered out of place by some critics and civilians. [Wikipedia]

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