Prague Art Nouveau – A New Kind of Art Prague has become synonymous with Art Nouveau even though in my experience people, at first glance, get Secessionist and Art Nouveau mixed up. In general, on the external side you can spot Prague Art Nouveau by looking for organic decorative features. Trees, flowers, branches/vines and fruit … Read More
Secessionist Prague Architecture What you now have to realize is that the last thousand years of design and architecture has been dominated either by Romanesque, Gothic, Renaissance or Baroque, each holding for no less than 200 years apiece. That’s a lot of history and religion. Note that I now run a Prague Architecture Tour for … Read More
Baroque Prague Architecture – Style with a Twirl Even though Prague is most associated with the modern era of Art Nouveau, it’s greatest influence by far is Baroque. You don’t just see Baroque Prague, you feel it, you touch it, you hear it. Baroque was certainly a reaction to the fairly plain functional nature of … Read More
Renaissance Prague Architecture The Prague Renaissance period saw a lot of social and technological change but it did not come with groundbreaking architectural design ideas as had been noted in the Romanesque and Gothic periods. It was more about artistic ideas and decorative styles to aesthetically improve the appearance of a building and not the … Read More
Prague Brutalism and Functionalist Architecture Prague Brutalism can also be called post-Modernism. Pretty much everything after 1897 could be grouped under the term “Modernism” even though we have different and specific names for it in many European countries. It just marks the separation of the “historic/religious” work from everything since. Brutalism is not just about … Read More
Prague Art Deco Architecture – The French Connection It should come as no surprise that “Arts Decoratifs” should become popular first in Paris but to be fair to Belgium the origin was in Brussels and as an individual art form it was simply known as “Art Deco” by 1925. Of course the style of Decorative … Read More
Prague Cubism Architecture – Not Just Cubes In chronological order, Cubism should directly follow Art Nouveau but in reality they ran side by side for 10 years or so. Prague Cubism was a very short lived era starting in 1911 and finishing in Prague in 1925 but wow it left some really original exteriors and … Read More