Trade Fair Palace

Trade Fair Palace

Prague, Czech Republic


The story

When the Trade Fair Palace opened in Prague in 1928, it was one of the largest functionalist buildings in the world, a vast hall of concrete, glass and light built for commercial fairs. Le Corbusier, visiting, is said to have been both impressed and unsettled by its sheer scale. After a fire gutted it in 1974, it was rebuilt to house the National Gallery's modern art.

Behind that severe façade is the best of Czech modern painting and a remarkable stock of French art bought early by the young Czechoslovak state, with Picasso given a room of his own and works by Monet, Renoir, Klimt and van Gogh. Rodin and Munch appear too.

The seven floors climb around a huge central atrium, and the building itself, all daylight and clean lines, is treated as the first exhibit you walk into.

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Collection

8 works