The Dancing House (Czech: Tančící dům) or Fred and Ginger is the nickname given to the Nationale-Nederlanden building in Prague, Czech Republic, at Rašínovo nábřeží (Rašín's riverbank). It was designed by the Croatian-Czech architect Vlado Milunić in co-operation with the renowned Canadian-American architect Frank Gehry on a vacant riverfront plot. The building was designed in 1992 and completed in 1996.
The very non-traditional design was controversial at the time because the house stands out among the Baroque, Gothic and Art Nouveau buildings for which Prague is famous and it does not accord well with these architectural styles. The then Czech president, Václav Havel, who lived for decades next to the site, had avidly supported this project, hoping that the building would become a center of cultural activity.
Gehry originally named the house as Fred and Ginger (after the famous dancers Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers – the house resembles a pair of dancers) but this nickname is now very rarely used; moreover, Gehry himself was later "afraid to import American Hollywood kitsch to Prague", so refused his own idea.
Read more about Dancing House: Origin, Structure, Controversy, Awards
Famous quotes containing the words dancing and/or house:
“Dance is bigger than the physical body. ...When you extend your arm, it doesn’t stop at the end of your fingers, because you’re dancing bigger than that; you’re dancing spirit.”
—Judith Jamison (b. 1943)
“Within the memory of many of my townsmen the road near which my house stands resounded with the laugh and gossip of inhabitants, and the woods which border it were notched and dotted here and there with their little gardens and dwellings, though it was then much more shut in by the forest than now.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)