On the Trail of Art Nouveau

Princess Hyacinth by Alphse Mucha.

Today we took to the streets in search of Art Nouveau. We had read that Prague was the center of the movement in the early 1900's and has the most and best preserved buildings from that era. We didn't even have to leave our building for the first two shots of attractive buildings. This is taken from our living room window. It shows the Church of St. Vltech.

This is the window down the stairs from our apartment.
Dancing Houses! For real. Janet Davies have you seen this building? (She painted our picture Dancing Houses that we have hanging in Seattle.) Ginger is on the left, with 8 legs, and Fred, with his hat on, is on the right. This was designed by Frank Gehry, who designed Seattle's Experience Music Project. I like this one better than EMP.

A lovely touch of stained glass at a ticket booth.

Larry liked this building.
The State Opera House
The ugliest building around! It is the Museum of Communism right across the street from the impressive National Museum.
A memorial to victims of communism.
St. Wenceslas, of course, on his Square.

Here he is again inside the lovely Lucerna Gallery. It's a grand mall with some leftover Art Deco glamour from the 1930's. This is a sculpture by David Cerny (1999) called Wenceslas Riding an Upside-Down Horse.
The Municipal House.
On Wenceslas Square, we passed some women getting pedicures. Fish were eating away at their dry, dead skin. I've heard that it feels good and is actually pretty sanitary. I decided not to have it done, though.

We liked the looks of this hotel on Wenceslas Square.

This hotel is famous because people leading rallies against the government would speak from the balconies. It is also on Wenceslas Square.
More Cubist Statues with sore necks!
I was waiting to see if these two fellows would accidently grab on to something embarassing to steady themselves as they worked.
To infinity--the cycle of tanks, then rebuilding.
We spent most of our afternoon at the Mucha Museum. He was a popular Czech artist famous for his Art Nouveau posters and considered one of the founders of the movement.