Architect: The House at the Mouse was built by Gočár in the valued art deco style

Prague - The building on Vodičkova Street, part of which collapsed on Sunday, was designed by the famous architect Josef Gočár. He designed it in the art deco style. Gočár was also the author of the similarly styled interior of the legendary café U Myšáka, which was located in the building, said architect and architectural historian Zdeněk Lukeš today to ČTK.
"Art deco is a highly valued style today, and therefore it is extremely desirable to save the building, clean the façade, and restore the interior," emphasized Lukeš. According to him, modern construction technologies allow this without any problems. Therefore, it should not happen that the building is unnecessarily written off. He noted that in the past, valuable buildings were often replaced by banal new constructions.
Representatives of the city hall and the investor claim that the façade facing Vodičkova Street will be preserved and that there are plans to restore the legendary café. The building is also expected to house a gallery. Concerns arose that the investor might demand a demolition order for the rest of the house based on experiences with other historical buildings and also because the investor initially wanted to remove the structure and replace the façade with a replica. However, heritage protectors disagreed.
According to Lukeš, recently there has been incorrect reporting regarding the building on Vodičkova Street, specifically regarding its façade, describing it as cubist or rondocubist. Lukeš considers the second term somewhat more accurate, but he believes the term cubism is entirely misleading. According to Lukeš, art deco is also referred to as decorative style or national style. According to him, it represents a total negation of architectural cubism.
Art historian Michal Zachař from the National Heritage Institute agrees with Lukeš's interpretation. He confirmed that the façade of the building on Vodičkova Street was designed by Gočár. Zachař and Lukeš were also joined by Jan Kněžínek, the director of the heritage department of the Prague city hall.
According to Lukeš, the art deco style had a national flavor in the Czech lands. Its ideological leader was architect Pavel Janák after the establishment of Czechoslovakia. Unlike architectural cubism, this style was very popular.
The original house, colloquially known as U Myšáka, was built in 1881 according to the plans of Prague architect Otto Ehlen, initially featuring a neo-Renaissance façade. In the following years, it underwent several reconstructions. The façade took its final form between 1921 and 1922. According to the estate of the owner, the famous Czech architect Josef Gočár, chairman of the Association of Visual Artists Mánes and professor at the Academy of Fine Arts, was commissioned to design the façade.
Gočár (1880 to 1945) underwent a complex evolution - from modernism (the Wenke House in Jaroměř), through cubism (the House at the Black Madonna in Prague) and art deco, or its Czech version, which can also be referred to as national decorative style (Legiobanka in Prague on Poříčí), to avant-garde architecture (houses in Baba, Prague).
Art deco was a decorative style primarily of applied arts from 1909 to 1929. It represented the final phase of secession transitioning to functionalism, utilizing exoticism and ornamentation from various historical styles as well as contemporary fauvism, cubism, and expressionism in all fields. According to Lukeš, it also incorporated folkloric elements in Czechoslovakia.

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