Adria Palace is an amazing rondocubism style building which was built between 1923 and 1924 and was designed by architect Josef Zasche in collaboration with Pavel Janák. You can stroll through the the palace passage, which still has a few shops, a theatre, art gallery and a restaurant.
I often pop into the Adria Cafe upstairs, because despite being directly in the centre, it’s never that busy and the prices are still reasonable. There is a great view from the cafe terrace, where you can enjoy your coffee and watch the Jungmanovo Square below and people walking by.
If you happen to be visiting Prague in May this year, do come along to the Open House Prague weekend (18 – 19 May 2024), where you can see Adria Palace open to the public. You get the chance to see parts of the palace that are not normally open and the tours are all free! This year, I’ll be one of the volunteer guides, so if you join the English tour, the chances are that you’ll get me as your guide!
I already knew a fair bit about Adria Palace, but it’s been great fun to research all the details and learn more about its fascinating history. And yes, if you find that this blog post is a bit too detailed, I’m using it to help me remember all my lines! Plus you never know what questions I might get, so I need to be ready.
My favourite reasons for visiting Adria Palace
- A great example of a rondocubism style building in Prague (also known as national style)
- Fabulous cafe with great views of the Jungmanovo Square
- See the largest galvanoplastic statue in the whole world
The Adria building description
This large corner palace is constructed out of a reinforced concrete frame with brick walls and has a basement with a theatre, six floors connected by two staircases, a paternoster and an elevator and also two courtyards. The palace has flat roofs, which you can only visit during a special Open House Prague days, but you get a wonderful view of Prague from there.
The building has a protected cultural monument status since 1958.
Palace Adria History
The Adria Palace was built for the Italian insurance company Riunione Adriatica di Sicurta, which purchased the original two-story palace at this location in 1910. The original palace was built 100 years earlier by the Passau bishop Leopold Leonard Count Thun.
The insurance company had the old palace demolished and between 1923 and 1924 carried out the construction of a new palace on an area of over 2,000 m².
The building was designed by German architect Josef Zasche, and a new colour scheme for the facades was selected by architect Pavel Janák in the style of Rondocubism (a follow-up style from the Czech cubist style). Pavel Janak also designed the inside of the Adria Palace.
The palace sculptures
The palace decor and statues were also made by Otto Gutfreund, Jan Štursa, František Anýž, Karel Dvořák and Bohumil Kafka.
Above the palace entrance from Jungmannova Street, there are statues by Karel Dvořák. You can see, for example, a sailor with a ship and a reaper (woman farmer), which symbolises the Czechoslovak and Italian connection.
The sculptor Adolf Mayer spend ten years working on the statues of dancing figures between windows on the first floor of the building.
The terrace facing Národní třída is decorated with marble female statues by Otto Gutfreund.
The second-floor facade is decorated with neoclassical marble sculptures by Bohumil Kafka. These sculptures are larger than a live size and are the gods Merkur, Perun, Demeter and Park.
It’s quite an obvious choice as Merkur was the god of business, shops, travelling and profit. Perun was one of the highest Slavic gods and he was a god of thunder, rain, storms and war. Demeter was a god of harvest, farming and god of plenty. And the last statue – Park – determines what happens to people and gods, whether it’s the length of their life or special life events.
The facade & palace decor
The facade is very boldly designed. The upper floors look like large towers with battlements, which are inspired by Italian Renaissance palaces and town halls and at the same time look like a fort or a castle.
The architect Zasche also added a cinema in the basement and solved the internal layout of the palace by creating a central courtyard and arcades. The arcade is designed with a circular gallery at the end of the passage corridors and a courtyard with a glass ceiling.
The arcade’s interior is one of Prague’s most beautiful passages. It has luxurious fittings and decor, for example, beautiful pinkish-brown Austrian marble, gleaming brass on the walls, light fixtures, and chandeliers.
The floor has a marble mosaic in red-blue and white colour, which was a fashionable colour combination at the time. You can tell that the building was designed for an insurance company because when you look at the floor of the central hall, you can see stone mosaics illustrating various disasters, such as a house on fire or a ship and train to symbolise travel insurance.
The Adria palace wasn’t always admired. In fact, when it was built, many Czech and foreign architects didn’t like the building, because they thought the building was too decorative, oldfashioned and not modern enough.
A side note on Rondokubism style – a unique Czech architectural style
Rondocubism is also called arch cubism, Czech Art Deco, national style, national decorativism, or the third cubist style.
It’s a distinctive style of architecture and art that existed mainly during the so-called ‘First Republic’ in Czechoslovakia or Czech Republic (1918 – 1939). Examples of buildings include the Adria Palace, the Radio Palace in Vinohrady or the building of the former Legionnaire’s Bank (Archa Palace) in New Town, Prague and more.
The Adria Statue
In the centre of the facade facing Národní třída, right on the top, you can see a neoclassical metal sculpture by Jan Štursa called ‘Adria – Moreplavba’ – ‘Adria – Seafaring’, which is inspired by insurance original location – the Italian port of Terst.
It’s a bit tricky to see the statue as it’s placed so high, but the statue has a figure of a young woman with a boat sail behind her, figures of a woman and a man standing on each side of her and at her feet she has a sea monster, a mermaid, and a drowned man.
You can see the statue much better if you visit the cafe terrace and look up.
It is probably the largest galvanoplastic statue in the world and definitely a technological rarity. It was made in Geislingen, Germany. It is 5 meters high and weighs 3 – 4 tons.
The Astronomical Clock entrance
In the courtyard, there is an astronomical clock with sculptural decorations by Bohumil Kafka: Day and Night, Sun and Moon, and 12 zodiac sculptures.
The Cinema, now the theatre
Today, you can find the theatre ‘Divadlo Bez zábradlí’ here, but originally the palace had a cinema in the basement, named (how else…) Adria.
The adaptation of the cinema into a theatre was done by architects František Cubr, Josef Hrubý, and Zdeněk Pokorný, who were also the authors of the Czechoslovak Pavilion for the World Expo EXPO 58 in Brussels, which you can now see in Letna Park in Prague 7 (and it’s currently being used as an office and a cafe, which is open to the public.
In 1959, the multimedia theatre Laterna Magika, which also had its premiere at the Brussels Expo was the first theatre to use the new space.
In 1960s, the theatre was used by the theatre ‘Divadlo za Branou’ (Theatre beyond the gate) directed by Otomar Krejča. But in 1972, the theatre was cancelled by the Ministry of Culture for ideological reasons, using inadequate fire safety conditions as the official excuse for closure.
The use of the palace through the last century
Over the years the building hosted a number of different companies. In the 1930s this was the Reunion cafe and prestigious fabric shops by Czech manufacturer Barhon.
In 1946 the building was taken over by a Czech insurance company called Slavie. There were also offices of the Chocolate & Sugar Factory, from 1959 Cosmetics Institute and Film Club offices (from 1946 – 1992).
In 1989 the main offices of the ‘Obcanske Forum’ – the first Czech political party after the Velvet Revolution in 1989 were here.
Today, there are mainly private offices but also some flats.
The palace was reconstructed from 1996 – 1998, but unfortunately, some of the improvements went against the historical keeping of the building – such as lowering ceilings to keep various technical cables hidden from view or replacing the original paternoster lifts with modern ones.
But at the same time, the large sculpture by Stursa, which was nearly beyond repair was saved and brought back to its original condition and the facade was cleaned and repaired too.
The story of the first palace owners – the insurance company – Riunione Adriatica di Sicurta
I’m always fascinated by how and why, so I had to find out more about the company that built this amazing place.
The Riunione Adriatica di Sicurta was an Italian Insurance Company which was founded in 1838 and still exists today although since 2007 it’s part of the Allianz group. You can still see their name above the main entrance door inside the palace passage.
This insurance company was originally founded in today’s Italy in a seaside town and an important port of Terst. Back then Italy was part of the Austria-Hungarian Empire, which is how we (Czechs…) get involved in all of this! Bohemia was an important part of the Empire and only six months after the company was established, a local branch was set up in Prague.
The Riunione Adriatica di Sicurta insurance company was originally focused on providing insurance against fire and travel insurance, with life insurance being added to its portfolio in 1858, and theft insurance in 1900.
The insurance company must have been doing well because by 1853 they had written their first-ever insurance policy to insure crops against hail stones and the insurance documents were signed in Prague.
By the 1920s the company wanted larger offices in Prague and decided to build their own building that would represent the company in the best possible (and affluent…) way. This is now the building, that we know as Palace Adria.
By the 1930s they needed to expand again and build another large building right next to their first building. It was designed by Fritz Lehmann in Art Deco style and built between 1930 and 1932. The building is at number 19 Jungmanovo Square, facing the main square and you can still see the insurance company name clearly written on the side of the building. The building is not open to the public, but there are shops and cafes on the ground floor that you can visit any time.
In 1918, the Austro-Hungarian monarchy was dissolved, and Trieste became a part of Italy, as did the Riunione insurance company. But in 1919 they obtained permission to carry on with their insurance business in the newly formed Czechoslovakia.
At the end of the 1920s, the insurance company began to heavily encourage the high-ranking officers of the Czechoslovak army to take out life insurance policies. The sensitive information about the private lives of many top officers that was part of the life insurance documents was apparently leaked to the Fascist Italy army units and used later to gain knowledge of Czechoslovakia army.
The insurance company was also linked to the misuse of Jewish insurance policies during the Czech Protectorate during the WW2. German report from July 1, 1942 states that the Nazis confiscated over 54.4 million worth of Jewish insurance policies.
The earnings from policies taken out at the Riunione insurance company at the time were nearly 6 million Czech crowns (at that time). The total amount of insurance policies confiscated by the Nazis between 1938 and 1945 amounted to almost 11 billion Czech crowns (at the WW2 rate).
The insurance company was active in Czechoslovakia until 1948 when all private companies were nationalised by the communist government.
What you can see inside the Adria Palace
Adria Cafe
Since the late 1920s, the second floor of this architectural gem housed the famous Prague concert cafe Reunion. The current Adria Café was opened in the spring of 2007 and you can see most of the original deco when you visit.
Here you can enjoy excellent coffee and homemade desserts, salads, pasta and risotto, as well as soups. The Adria Cafe is much more than just a coffee house, they have a great fusion menu with budget-friendly lunchtime offers during the week, great desserts, coffee, cocktails and a local wine list.
Over the years, I’ve been for breakfast, lunch and afternoon coffees and it was always a great experience. If it’s nice weather definitely sit outside on the balcony – it’s surprisingly quiet there, despite Jungmanovo Square being just underneath. I always thought that the Cafe Adria is a bit of a hidden gem, as it’s tucked away only a few streets from the centre, but unless you know about it, you probably wouldn’t even find the entrance!
Adria Coffee House Opening Times: Monday – Friday – 8 am – 11 pm, Saturday – Sunday – 9 am – 11 pm
Prices: Breakfast from 95 CZK, lunch menu from 170 CZK, tea, coffee from 70 CZK, Adria coffee speciality (espresso coffee, Baileys, vanilla ice cream, coconut & whipped cream) 110 CZK, Beer (Hubertus, Pilsner Urqvell, Velkopopvicky Kozel – Dark beer ) from 65 CZK for 500 ml (just under pint), main menu – soups from 90 CZK, salads from 150 CZK, main courses from 260 CZK, desserts from 100 CZK.
Bez Zábradlí Theater (Theatre ‘Without Railings or Bannister’)
This theatre was originally founded in 1991 by actor Karel Hermanek and his wife Hana. It’s the longest-performing theatre in the Czech Republic that is privately funded.
The name is a bit of a private joke – the theatre was formed from actors of ‘Theatre on the Railings or Bannister’ which was dissolved in 1991. The name itself has nothing to do with staircase bannister or railings, but it refers to the original theatre being based in the street called ‘Na Zabradli’. The name of the street, however, does come from a town gate which was originally at the end of the street.
Whilst this theatre performs in the Czech language without the option of English subtitles, they often put on famous musicals (currently it’s the Cabaret), have concerts and theatre plays from international playwritters. The theatre is fairly compact, which means that you can see and hear well from any seat. Tickets are priced from 500 CZK – 900 CZK depending on the seating arrangement.
Gallery of Critics
On the first floor, you can also visit the art gallery, which puts on regular exhibitions. The exhibitions are always brilliantly curated, but if you are also interested in seeing more of the building you should definitely venture upstairs to the gallery. You’ll find the original doors, windows and light fittings and also an amazing glass dome which lights up the whole space.
- Opening Times: Tuesday – Sunday (closed on Mondays and public holidays) – 11 am – 6 pm
- Tickets: 40 CZK adult, 20 CZK students, senior citizens
PRACTICAL INFORMATION
- Location: Jungmannovo náměstí (Square), 110 00, Prague 1 (nearest underground is Mustek – line B)
- The passage opening times: All the times (not restricted) Cafe & Gallery – open every day until late
- Tickets: Free
- Special Open Days – Open House Prague – 17 & 18 May 2024 – see the inside of the palace as well as the roof views. Guided tours are in Czech & English and entrance is free. No need to book, just turn up. Open between 10 am – 6 pm.
PIN TO KEEP FOR LATER
This blog post was originally written on 30 April 2024 and last updated on 30 April 2024