This is Picture-of-the-Day time, but it’s also a bit of a One-Clue Mystery, and perhaps a Gumbo reader can help with a solution!
I’ve had these two images on my mind since a stay in Prague several years ago, in an apartment around the corner. The unusual building is at Chlumova 7, and is occupied by the Vachler Art Company and Studio Pokrok, a full-service video and photo production company.
So far, I’ve found no online information on the building’s origin, and neither company has replied to my inquiries. On a close look, the structure is less eccentric than it seems on first glance; the windows and walls are actually straight, but the colored surrounds make them look off-kilter.
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GeorgeG, TravelGumbo’s Top Sleuth has come up with the answers… read on!
My best shot at this one. Cannot find the architect who did the expanded building Pokrok Studio behind the original theater.
My first image is the façade of the former Pokrok Theater in Štítného Streetthat was expanded then modernized in the 1990’s for the Vachler Art Studioand Studio Pokrokon the back of the original theater. (see my second attachment map).
The first cinema in Žižkov, Štítného 34 – In 1909, Vilém Weiss opened a second permanent cinema on the first floor of Bezovka, which introduced films with a peculiar verbal accompaniment. Because he longed for a bigger hall, he bought the building of the former Pokrok Theater in Štítného Street in October 1911 and, after extensive adaptation, opened the I. Žižkov Cinematography Theater in it in August 1912. The still-preserved inscription can lead to the mistaken assumption of priority. However, the inscription must be understood not as a true first of biographical productions, but as the beginning of cinema in the first independent building, already built directly for cultural purposes. In 1949, Žižkov’s Pokrok cinema was transformed into a short film studio. In the 1990s, the building was completely renovated and rebuilt. Nowadays, Ateliery Petr Vachler Pokrok and Studio Pokrok are located here.
Found the above info here …. http://usedlosti.ctrnactka.
