Wednesday, 7 April 2010

The Dancing House in Prague (Frank Gehry,1996)

View of the façade at The Dancing House in Prague 

Detailed view of the façade components and the supporting steel frame

The Dutch bank Ing made an investment for this important project because they aimed to create an icon in Prague. The Architect Frank Gehry accepted the challenge to make a great project in 491 square meters plot.

The construction started in 1994 and the house was finished in 1996.

The building reflects a woman and man, Ginger Rogers and Fred Astair, dancing together.

Observing the façade, it is noticed the following details with regard to the façade:

  • It is a simple trasparent skin in front of the inner façade.
  • The system façade is a point supported glass fixing.
  • The façade is facetted.
  • The glass composition are supposed to be toughened due to the drills in the glass panes.
  • There are four bolds supporting every panel of glass.
  • The joints are opened.
  • The brackets of the supporting steel frame are fixed onto the building structure.The vertical profiles are T sections connected between them through hollow profile sections. 
  • The façade supporting steel frame looks like a sailing structure.
The façade system design is innovative considering the design took place in early 90´s, as the first project with point supported glass façade system took place in 1987.

2 comments:

  1. Renato, do you know who were the consulting engineers for this project?

    ReplyDelete
  2. Dear Reader,

    I don´t know who was appointed as consultant.

    Thank you for your interest on this blog.

    Renato

    ReplyDelete

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