Hodek Apartments

The Hodek Apartment building, designed by Josef Chochol and built between 1913 and 1914 in Prague right before the First World War, is the best example of Czech Architecture. El edificio de apartamentos Hodek, obra de Josef Chochol construida entre 1913 y 1914 en Praga, poco antes de la Primera Guerra Mundial, es el mejor ejemplo de la arquitectura cubista checa. Czech Cubism, named by a group of Czhech painters that were familiar with the Cubism of Picasso and Braque, experimented with rhythmical nets and usied broken surfaces and irregular forms (it was very different from the analitical cubism of Picasso and Braque). El Cubismo checo, nombre adoptado por un grupo de jóvenes pintores checos familiarizados con el cubismo de Picasso y Braque, experimentado con sus propios diseños (que poco tenía que ver con el cubismo analítico de Picasso y Braque) de redes rítmicas, se caracteriza por superficies fracturadas y formas irregulares. Hodek was built between the border of an old neighborhood of Prague and XX century developments towards South. It is located in an acute corner of a site with a prominent slope. This modest small housing project has several of the quality of the latest “Cubist” style. The parapets and cornice geometrically sculptured, some of the door and window details on the ground floor, and the exterior walls without any ornament are some of the typical cubist details. The classical arrangement of the façade in both streets overlaps an structural modulation. The balconies, cancelled in the corner, suggest an spatial dimensions as a cubist canvas. Hodek fue construido en el borde entre un viejo barrio de Praga y distritos del siglo XX hacia el sur. Situado en una esquina aguda en un terreno en pendiente, este modesto bloque de viviendas pequeñas exhibe algunas de las cualidades de detalle del estilo tardío “cubista”.