Curator Adam Stech of the Czech creative collective OKOLO will talk about the communist era Hotel Praha in Prague, demolished in 2014. Focusing on the strong design legacy and the phenomenon known as “total work of art” (Gesamtkunstwerk), where architecture, design and art became one all-embracing art concept, Stech will present several other projects by leading Czech architects and designers, working between 1945 and 1989. Taking place in the iconic brutalist building of the Slovak Embassy, visitors will have a…

Schubert’s single quartet movement is a heartfelt fragment, while the troubled ‘Rosamunde’ quartet’s slow movement borrows a well-known theme from some incidental music. Conversely, Dvorak transferred a memorable theme from his final quartet to his symphonic poem A Hero’s Song. Franz Schubert: String Quartet in A minor D804 'Rosamunde' Antonin Dvorak: String Quartet No. 14 in A flat Op. 105 Tickets £40 £35 £30 £25 £18 Bookings are subject to a £3 booking fee. This fee covers the whole booking…

International diplomacy stopped working.  A new breed of authoritarian ruler emerged, contemptuous of the rules of diplomacy and collective security, and willing to lie and bully to build power and influence.  Europe’s democracies were confused and defensive.  It is 1938 and Germany is putting pressure on Czechoslovakia. Join David Vaughan and Michael Tate in a discussion of the use and abuse of radio, the new media of the 1930s. David Vaughan is a writer and broadcaster. His second book, Hear…

A witty farce about the French prime minister’s parrot, a witness to the Munich Conference, who reveals its secrets decades later, wounded national pride and the perils of filmmaking. Sir P, a 90-year-old parrot who once belonged to the French prime minister responsible for signing the 1938 Munich Agreement which forced Czechoslovakia to cede much of its borders to Germany, finds himself at a press conference in Prague as a living relic of the time. Repeating the controversial statements of…

An illustrated talk by Jana Buresova Czechoslovakia was headline news in 1938/39, yet little was known about its cultural heritage. Patriotic exiles in Britain determined to remedy this through multi-faceted entities such as the Czechoslovak Institute, graced by Queen Elizabeth, Queen consort, who attended an exhibition of Wenceslaus Hollar’s engravings. It also hosted contemporary artists such as Friedrich Feigl, Marie-Louise von Motieczky, sculptor Mary Duras and musicians including Vilem Tausky. But the Communist-inspired Czechoslovak-British Friendship Club, the Czechoslovak Army’s Sokol…