Prague Cubism Museum

Prague Cubism Museum – House at the Black Madonna

When you buy your ticket at the ground floor office you’ll be told to go directly to the 4th floor and work your way down to third and second. You should really have some background knowledge of Czech Cubism before coming here at least to understand the rules. You’ll be seeing furniture and ceramic exhibits from some of the most famous architects of the period (Pavel Janák, Josef Gočar). There’s work by artists and illustrators (Bohumil Kubista, Emil Filla, František Kysela, Vlastislav Hofman) and bronzes by Otto Guttfreund spread throughout the floors. Eventually you reach the first floor where you get 10% off your bill at the renovated Cubist Grand Cafe Orient.

So you’ll need to understand that you are looking at a collection of Cubist items within a Cubist building but it’s not going to give you a background to Cubism or a building timeline but there is information (in Czech) which you can take away to find Cubist buildings in the city.

Cubism Era

Czech Cubism, or to give it the correct name Czech Cubo-expressionism, has to be the most short-lived architectural era especially in Czech where it appeared in 1911 and by 1925 was gone. Only 14 years and it had to fight for space as the era ran alongside the back end of the Art Nouveau period and the beginning of Art Deco. So unlike several streets in the centre with groupings of Art Nouveau, Cubism buildings are quite spread out.

Prague Cubism Museum - large furnishings — Prague Cubism Museum – large furnishings

The first example of a Cubism building according to the Czech definition was completed in 1911 and it’s called the House at the Black Madonna (the name of a building that was demolished to make way for the current one). Or its other name is the Prague Cubism Museum.

Prague Cubism Museum - the view back down the stairs — Prague Cubism Museum – the view back down the stairs

Cubism is a “Total” art form in that as well as buildings it encompasses interior design, art, jewellery and furnishing as well. Until 2004 the bulk of the Prague Cubism Museum collection was actually at the Museum of Decorative Arts and sometimes this is referred to as the Permanent Cubism Exhibition of the Museum of Decorative Arts. In the year 2000 the city bought the House at the Black Madonna and started a 4 year restoration process which renovated all four floors. Currently they lease half of the ground floor and the first floor but everything else contains the Prague Cubism Museum collection.

My Thoughts

For designers, creative people, architects and anybody with an avant-garde interest then it’s worth visiting but you won’t need more than an hour unless you really want to read everything and study individual exhibits.