The Lucerna Palace

history

Lucerna Palace, one of Prague’s best-known and largest multifunctional complexes, stands between Vodičkova Street and Štěpánská Street. The site was previously occupied by the low, two-storey Aehrenthal Palace, named after its owner, Jan Lexa von Aehrenthal, who purchased it from Šimon Truksa in 1773. Sometime around the end of the fourteenth century, a brewery known as U Černého orla or U Pekárků stood here.

The Lucerna complex comprises an extensive group of interconnected buildings crossed by a network of arcades, its architecture marking the transition from Art Nouveau to Modernism. Construction began in 1906 to designs by the engineer Vácslav Havel and J. Čamský. Its reinforced-concrete frame was designed by Dr Stanislav Bechyně, who later became an academician and a distinguished structural engineer. The palace rests on a massive concrete foundation slab laid on a bed of sand and gravel 14 metres below ground level. An exceptional feat of engineering, the building was one of the first reinforced-concrete structures in Prague and is listed as a cultural monument. The complex comprises a seven-storey building laid out in three tracts, with three basement levels and several staircases. In the transverse, double-tract building within the courtyard complex, a hall was established that was intended to serve as a chamber stage for the National Theatre. It was subsequently converted into an 820-seat cinema. The main façade was decorated with sculptures and stucco work by Václav Prokop. A spacious studio was situated in the attic above the tract facing Vodičkova Street, the largest in central Prague before the First World War. Exhibitions were held there, and for several years it housed the Academy of Fine Arts’ School of Graphic Arts under Professor Max Švabinský. The tract facing Vodičkova Street was completed in 1908. A four-storey building was subsequently added on Štěpánská Street and linked to the existing building across a courtyard, which was roofed over with glass at second-floor level. Above this, the building was extended by a third tract and a glazed atrium crowned by a dome, creating the impression of an enormous lantern. The dome’s reinforced-concrete frame was glazed with specially manufactured thick glass. The final part to be completed, in 1920, was Lucerna’s Great Hall, the largest hall in Czechoslovakia at the time.

Lucerna can also claim several other firsts. It featured Prague’s first shopping passage and Prague’s first automat restaurant staffed by girls who were nicknamed “Růženky” (Little Roses). Joe Hloucha, a well-known traveller at the time, leased the older part of the palace facing Vodičkova Street, where he set up a Japanese tearoom and confectioner’s, furnished in the Japanese style and staffed by attendants wearing kimonos. It was called Yokohama. In the 1920s, the architect Rittersheim converted it into a new establishment inspired by Slovak village folklore. Known as Zimní zahrada, or Winter Garden, it also included a folk-style restaurant called Hospoda pod Lucernou. The site is now occupied by the Hospoda Lucerna restaurant, formerly known as Černý kůň. The connecting spaces between the Great Hall and the front tract formed a smaller hall that housed a fashionable cabaret. It had a circular revolving stage with a circular trapdoor. Karel Hašler performed here, followed for a short time by Divadlo Komedie, which was destroyed by fire in 1927. It was subsequently home to the Lucerna Cabaret restaurant, led by Jiří Voskovec and Jan Werich. Dance and cabaret revues were also staged here. Its coloured low-voltage spotlights, which produced little heat, were highly advanced for their time. The space was later converted into a music bar, now known as Lucerna Music Bar, where concerts are regularly held.

Lucerna Palace’s Great Hall extends over three levels beneath the arcade. It is 9 metres high, 54 metres long and 25.5 metres wide. The dance floor used for balls measures 42 × 16 metres. For concerts, up to 4,000 seats can be accommodated in the stalls and on the balconies. The hall unfortunately suffers from insufficient ventilation. In 1921, a bronze bust by the sculptor Jan Štursa of Lucerna’s founder and builder, Ing. Vácslav Havel, was installed at the entrance to the hall. Today it once again stands in its original place. Throughout the years, the hall has been used for social, cultural and sporting purposes, particularly concerts by distinguished artists. Past performers have included members of the New York Philharmonic conducted by Arturo Toscanini, the cellist Pablo Casals, violinists Jan Kubelík, Jaroslav Kocián, Josef Suk and Yehudi Menuhin, opera singers Fyodor Chaliapin, Ema Destinnová and Otakar Mařák, the French chansonnier Maurice Chevalier, and the American dancer Josephine Baker, to name but a few. After the Second World War, the hall hosted concerts by the American jazz singer Ella Fitzgerald, the American singer and trumpeter Louis Armstrong, the American singer Ray Charles, the French chanson performers Yves Montand, Lucienne Boyer and Gilbert Bécaud, and the orchestras of Duke Ellington and Benny Goodman. Its guests also included the Indian poet and Nobel Prize laureate Rabindranath Tagore, while the wrestling arena saw appearances by Franta Nekolný and Gustav Frištenský. During the totalitarian era, however, the hall also hosted communist and youth organisation conferences and congresses. The Lucerna Palace is now owned by Dagmar Havlová, the wife of Ivan Havel, Václav Havel’s brother.