The large house at the National Avenue 25 was built in a palatial Neo- Renaissance style in 1870 according to the design by architect Bohumil Tesař (1835–1890), an absolvent of the Viennese Academy and an assistant and building inspector by Ferdinand  Fellner in Vienna until 1858. After return to Prague, we worked under Josef Zítek and cooperated with him on the construction of the National Theatre. He was the  main building inspector at the beginning of the construction of the National Theatre (1868).

Václav Kleinhampl purchased the building N. 961 on the Viktoria Avenue of that time in 1919. The name Metro palace was given to the house after an extensive reconstruction that was carried out in 1922–1925 with essential participation of Karl E. Ort  (1881–1936), who was a professor of decorative arts school in Brno, and engineer Stanislav Bechyně, who designed a daring reinforced concrete construction.

The property owner established a famous delicatessen shop, cafe, wine shop and later cinema for a thousand spectators in the new space. The rest of the vast building served as an office building.

The first design of the cellar cinema Metro is dated back to 1925, but the works according to the new project commenced two years later, the building approval was issued on 3^rd  April of 1928, the first production premiered already on 30^th  March of 1928.

The theatre is accessible from National Avenue. Through a Neo-Renaissance portal, one enters into a glass arcade, where a ticket office is located in the ground floor and an entrance into a foyer of the former cinema. A simple architectural concept of the cinema hall of   27 × 16 m size was determined by strict lines of heavy prismatic columns and similarly distinctive lintels and continuous parapets in front of the balcony and both of its arms in the entire length of the side walls. Almost 700 seats were located in the stalls that were divided by lengthwise as well as crosswise aisles from over than 900 seats. All 25 boxes were concentrated on the balcony, six rows of seats ascended behind the seven front ones. There was a 10 m wide stage in front of a screen being 5,5 meters wide.

The Metro Palace was nationalized in 1945 and various users changed here up to 1989 and that caused dilapidation of the entire building. In 1968, conversion of the cinema into a public experimental studio of the Czechoslovakian Radio was permitted. The Radio operated here between 1970–1978. Temporal conversion of the cinema into a theatre was carried out in this period – the stage, dressing rooms and director booth on the balcony was newly  furnished. The Ministry of Finance decided in 1979 that the Metro Palace would be transferred from Czechoslovakian Radio to the District Enterprise of Housing Management (OPBH) and a  reconstruction of the cinema was carried out. The balcony was removed in the hall that was structurally dilapidated in 1985 and the space then served as a storage facility for Laterna Magica. 

In the present day, the Metro palace is in the possession of V. Kleinhampl’s descendants. A building inspector permitted a change of use of the cinema hall to multipurpose (gaming machines, laser games) in 2000. A completion certificate was issued for the multipurpose hall in 2003.  The Image Theatre has been opened here after reconstruction in 2016.

Sources and Literature:

–  Úřad Městské části Praha 1, archiv odboru výstavby, spis domu čp. 961/I

–  Český svět 24, 1928, č. 31, s. 20

–  Jiří Hilmera, Stavební historie pražských kinosálů: Část 2. Dvacátá léta, Iluminace 10, 1998, č. 2, s. 93–136, zde s. 128

–  Marie Zdeňková – Josef Vomáčka, Miroslav Melena: Scénograf a architekt, Praha 2011, s. 146

Tags: terraced house, theatre hall

Author: Markéta Svobodová

Translator: Jan Purkert