Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
late nineteenth century the island had become one of the city's foremost pleasure gardens,
where,asthecomposerBerliozremarked,“badmusiciansshamelesslymakeabominablemu-
sic in the open air and immodest young males and females indulge in brazen dancing, while
idlers and wasters…lounge about smoking foul tobacco and drinking beer”. Concerts, balls
and other social gatherings still take place in the cultural centre, though generally things are
much less raucous than in Berlioz's day. At the northern end of the island the park benches
gathered around a statue of the greatest Czech female novelist, Božena Němcová , provide a
pleasant urban picnic spot. The southern tip is dominated by the onion-domed Šítek water
tower , which provided a convenient lookout post for the Czech secret police watching over
Havel's nearby flat.
Galerie Mánes
Masarykovo nábřeží 250 • Tues-Sun 10am-6pm • 224 932 938, ncvu.cz/manes • Tram #17 to Jiráskovo
náměstí
Spanning the narrow channel between Slovanský Island and the embankment is the striking
white functionalist shoebox of the Galerie Mánes . Designed in open-plan style by Otakar
Novotný in 1930, the art gallery is named after Josef Mánes, a traditional nineteenth-century
landscape painter and Czech nationalist, and puts on consistently interesting contemporary
exhibitions; in addition there's a café and an upstairs restaurant, suspended above the chan-
nel. The whole caboodle was under renovation at the time of writing.
Tančící dům (Dancing House)
Jiráskovo náměstí 6 • Tram #17 to Jiráskovo náměstí
South of the Mánes gallery, Masarykovo nábřeží becomes Rašínovo nábřeží , named after
Alois Rašín, who was sentenced to death for treason during World War I, went on to become
the interwar Minister of Finance and was assassinated by an anarchist in 1923. The most
strikingstructureonthispartoftheembankmentisthe Tančícídům (DancingHouse)-pop-
ularly known as “Fred and Ginger” and named after the shape of the building's two towers,
which vaguely resemble a couple ballroom dancing. (Some less enthusiastic Praguers com-
ment that it looks more like a crushed plastic bottle abutting a cartoon prison.) Designed
by the Canadian-born Frank Gehry and the Yugoslav-born Vlado Milunič, it represents the
worst excesses of post-Communist architecture that plagued Czech cityscapes in the 1990s.
It would not get planning permission in today's Prague, which quickly smartened up about
its historical heritage in the late 1990s. The Dancing House was all the more controversial as
it stands next door to no. 77, an apartment block built at the turn of the twentieth century by
Havel's grandfather, where, until the early 1990s, Havel and his first wife, Olga, lived in the
top-floor flat.
Palacký Monument
Palackého náměstí • Tram #3, #4, #10, #14, #16 or #17 to Palackého náměstí
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