<Dancing House>

The house came about as a result of a long series of incredible and unexpected coincidences: by sheer chance, I lived in the neighboring house, which belonged to the Havel family. In 1986, during the deep totality, Václav Havel, at that time enemy number 1 of the state, coincidentally asked me to work on a project to divide their apartment into two parts for both brothers. The reconstruction was carried out with the assistance of the secret police, which I coincidentally managed to endure. While modifying the apartment, Václav and I naively talked about how wonderful it would be if there were a house entirely dedicated to culture on the neighboring lot, which had been bombed at the end of the war. Then, as if by a miracle, the Velvet Revolution happened, and Václav coincidentally became the president of the state instead of its enemy. Based on a random mention by President Václav, I received an order for a study of a corner house with a cultural focus. I wanted the house, which arose from and as a consequence of the Velvet Revolution, to be a reflection of it. Therefore, I designed an object composed of two parts, static and dynamic, similar to society, where its smaller part separated from the majority, statically totalitarian and rigid, and ventured into the world of change. My project coincidentally appealed to my friend Pavel Koch, who happened to represent the Dutch company Nationale Nederlanden in Prague. For tactical reasons, we coincidentally secured a very suitable partner for the realization of the building, the architect Frank Gehry. Another coincidence occurred when two architects from opposite ends of the globe, in rare agreement, built a nice bold gift for Prague for Dutch guilders, which became a positive symbol of the city, a dance over the end of totality. It was an amazing time, and our house is a testament to that. It was a love story, which I am reminded of by many love letters from Frank.
I am very sorry that the built house today is full of inaccessible offices with an expensive restaurant on the top floor and is not a house of accessible culture for everyone.