01 Jul 2011

Walking the streets of Prague is an exercise in rediscovery. The city constantly adapts to modern sensibilities – in its architecture, cuisine, design and culture – without losing sight of its rich heritage. By EVAN RAIL

The Dancing House in downtown Prague is a striking modern contrast to the Baroque, Gothic and Art Nouveau buildings in the city.

Getting your head around Prague is often a question of geographical orientation. For visitors from the west, the capital of the Czech Republic might seem like an eastern city, the gateway to Eastern Europe and a former Eastern Bloc metropolis from when the country was still called Czechoslovakia. For nations east of here, Prague is often thought of as a western destination, one with more glitz, glamour and good times than larger conurbations in later time zones. Whatever the case, the city’s allure these days has a lot to do with the revival and restoration of its heritage and traditions of food, art, culture and design, refashioned into chic shops, cafes, pubs, restaurants, galleries and hotels that have sprung up around the thousand-year-old capital, particularly in the last five years.

Czech style

Set in a hairpin crook on the Vltava River, Praha, as Prague is known to locals, is a city with a colourful and rich history. Founded first as a small castle complex on the hill over the water and growing ever larger over the centuries, its glory days came in the mid-14th century, when Roman Emperor Charles IV (1346-1378) made it the capital city of the Holy Roman Empire. This was also the period where much of the Mala Strana neighbourhood below Prague Castle and Old Town across the water was built.

A second turn as the imperial capital at the end of the 16th century would bring another heyday – and more great architecture, including many parts of the sprawling Strahov Monastery next to Prague Castle. The beautiful buildings largely survived the Nazi occupation, followed by a Communist takeover in 1948 that stifled the vibrant cultural life under the Gothic towers and Baroque curlicues until the Velvet Revolution brought back freedom in late 1989.

Strahov Monastery’s library boasts stunning frescoes and one of the country’s oldest monastic collections.

Jean Nouvel’s Golden Angel building in Smichov, a postmodern architectural showcase.

While Soviet-era authorities favoured architecture in the Brutalist mode – imposing, top-heavy structures that often featured a raw, unfinished look – recent developments have ushered in postmodern shapes from star architects such as Jean Nouvel, whose Golden Angel building anchors the neighbourhood of Smichov. Covered in quotes from the city’s best-known writer, Franz Kafka, the Golden Angel’s curved, shiny surfaces contrast brightly with the flat, angular shapes nearby. On the other side of the river stands the Dancing House, a Frank Gehry collaboration with local architect Vlado Milunic. Its wavy lines of off-kilter windows and an elegant, swooping shape resemble two bodies in mid-dance, leading locals to christen it Fred and Ginger, after the famous dance duo, Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers.

Design revival

As well-established as Prague might seem in architectural terms, walking through the city today can feel like an extended state of rediscovery, even in the most familiar and everyday of areas – and in almost every corner of Czech culture.

A vibrant visual culture had begun to take shape in Prague as early as 1918, when the Czech Republic emerged from the Hapsburg Empire and became the independent nation of Czechoslovakia. And for some 20 years after, Prague experienced a glorious age, where its standard of living bested many capitals in Western Europe; but that period of cultural flowering was followed by decades of stagnation during Communist rule (1948-1989). Today, art and design are flourishing anew.

Discover a distinctly Czech style among Prague’s young designers.

The understatedly modern Celeste serves up cutting-edge French cuisine.

Just take the new generation of young designers who are rediscovering the visual taste of an earlier era even as they seek to promote a new take on Czech style. A handful of them banded together to set up the Czech Fashion Centre (czechfashion.cz) in the Old Town district of Josefov, a former Jewish ghetto. And while designers a decade ago might have been content to simply emulate well-known labels from the West, today’s creators are attempting to define a look that’s distinctly Czech. Brands such as Martina Nevarilova’s Navarila (navarila.cz) strike a fine balance between the region’s traditional formality and a more urbane street style, as does the Classic 66 line of retro sneakers from Botas (botas66.cz), the traditional sportswear manufacturer of communist Czechoslovakia.

“It’s really a vintage design,” says Jan Kloss, who, together with Jakub Korous, renewed the classic sneaker as a university project in 2008. While the designers kept the general form of the shoes – a classic, seven-hole 1970s sneaker shape not unlike the Adidas and Puma models of the era – they also made minor tweaks to the colour, fabric and texture of the shoes.