Wood Panelling
Hotel Praha, 1970s
Description:
Two units of wood panelling designed for an infamous Hotel in former Czechoslovakia: the Hotel Praha.
Commissioned by the Communist Party in Czechoslovakia, construction began on the Hotel Praha in 1975. Beyond hosting the communist delegation, one of the salient aims of the Hotel was to entertain and impress foreign visitors.
Amidst a backdrop of austerity in the years prior to the Velvet Revolution, the Hotel was an architectural emblem created by some of the leading architects and designers in the former communist state. The colossal, curved building covered 9800 square-meters and comprised 136 rooms, a restaurant, swimming pool, and bowling alley, before being demolished in 2014.
The units of panelling are typical of the decorative elements designed for the Hotel. Thin lengths of wood, likely beech, tapered at each end and mounted onto a metal frame. Images of the Hotel interior suggest that panels such as this may have been installed onto walls or ceilings. These linear units, architectural in their proportions and spareness of line, would have emphasised the monumentality of the Hotel Praha interiors. Whether installed onto walls or ceilings, the effect of the shadowed gaps created between the wooden bars would have dissolved space and the boundaries of whichever room they panelled. Not simply decorative, panelling such as this would have played a salient supporting role in creating the impressive schemes that defined the Hotel Praha's legacy.
The panels pictured have been mounted together, although they can be separated into two equal units.
Also pictured: