Association House of the Czech Women’s Club

Architect: Milada Petříková-Pavlíková

Year of completion: 1933

On Ve Smečkách Street, we can find a building created as a symbol of independence and emancipation of Czech women. We are talking about the Association House of the Czech Women’s Club, built at the beginning of the 1930s at the initiative of this feminist-oriented association. To finance the construction, the club members established a cooperative and contributed from their funds and a loan repaid from membership fees. Significant help also came from Senator Františka Plamínková, Alice Masaryková, and the first Czech female architect, Milada Petříková-Pavlíková, who was a member herself and designed the house for the association free of charge. In the early 1930s, a multifunctional functionalist building was thus created with club rooms, a library, a lecture hall, housing for women, and a restaurant. The restaurant was the only place in the house where men were allowed. Otherwise, the spaces were exclusively for female members and other female visitors.

The entire building is centered around a central atrium, which blends the distinctive octagonal shape of the internal staircase. This staircase runs through the whole structure and is one of the last places where original details have been preserved, including railings made of bent pipes. Even the lecture hall did not escape modifications; after the club's activities were forcibly terminated in 1949, it was adapted for theatrical performances – today, it is home to the renowned Činoherní Club. The rest of the building, formerly serving as a hub for many women's organizations and a base for ladies of the First Republic, now serves as accommodation.

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