Prague is full of neat restaurants, cafes, and bars that each have something unique about them like The Iron Curtain, a bar full of paraphernalia from the Communist area, or the Grand Orient Café, which is a café inside a revolutionary cubist building and where I had lunch. Traditionally when I think of cubism I think of Picasso and his choppy paintings, but the cubist movement in the Czech Republic is a little different. Realizing the importance of cubism, Czech artists tried to recreate the components of this art movement in their own way through architecture, sculpture, and painting. The Grand Orient Café is located in the building named House of the Black Madonna, which was built in 1911 by Josef Gocar. Originally a Baroque building occupied this area and the rebuilding of it created a controversy because of its important location near Old Town. The building however does not conflict with the surrounding buildings due to the fact that the language of the building is Baroque architecture in Cubist form, which shows the ‘contextualization’ of Cubist architecture. The Grand Café Orient’s design, located on the first floor, is the only surviving Cubist interior in the world. It was renovated in 2005 according to original plans and today is one the prettiest cafes I have been to. I felt like I was in another era in here and with the 1920s music I felt like I was in a living museum. The food and coffee were very tasty and not at all pricey, and I would recommend it to all who visit Prague.
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