Cross ClubThe cool Holešovice club that plays host to this year's Prague TV Monster Ball
|
||||||
|
Off the beaten track of Prague's club scene is an emerging Picasso of lighting design. It's 1am and I am standing in front of a small stage on which Austrian electrojazz band Weenwoodoo is playing with enthusiasm. They make a fine sound, but that's not why I have been gradually making my way to the stage. I have been mesmerized by a strange object suspended from the ceiling just above the lead singer's head. It is a revolving metal cylinder, about eight feet long, speckled with colored lights that blur into lines of shifting acidic color as it spins. To clear my head I turn to my right and find myself transfixed by a more openly surreal object: a glass-fronted box in which vinyl records have been stacked on plate racks. A frothing liquid suggests this is a dishwasher - except that it is also a fully functioning stage light. In the Cross Club, the bands have to compete for attention with the light fixtures. Located a stone's throw from Nádraží Holešovice on the ground floor and basement of a rundown housing block (the club's staff and their cats live upstairs), the Cross Club began life as a private hangout, with a strict "friends only" policy until just over a year ago. Now having acquired all the permits and licenses required by Prague's fastidious bureaucrats, word on the club's varied program of DJs, bands and, on Sunday nights, new Czech theatre is spreading. The club's grungy origins are still detectable in the upstairs bar area, where the snuggest of snuggeries is reached by a precipitous flight of steps that is almost a ladder. Past the foosball room, where an immense sprig of dried teazle plants slowly rotates, is perhaps Prague's chillest lounge area, where students wind down in the late afternoon and a stupendously bizarre object glows a fiendish red while fizzing silently, like some monstrous cocktail served up by Satan himself. A quiet afternoon visit is recommended if you have an eye for art and design - the Cross Club is also the default exhibition space for a collection of audacious, robust and often witty designs and inventions, most of which emit the light that gives the club its unique atmosphere. Every one of them was designed and built by an electrician from Turnov who has never been near an art or design course. František "Fanda" Chmelik, a friend of the club's manager, was initially asked to do the basic wiring but quickly made the space an outlet for his bursting energy and creativity. As well as producing an endless stream of head-turning contraptions, Chmelik has created more subtly beautiful lights, often incorporated into murals or mosaics. "I have so many ideas per minute I should have an entry in the Guinness Book of Records," the 30-year-old electrician says, and on a quick wander through the labyrinthine rooms one can almost see Chmelik's mercurial mind at work. He takes up a theme, exhausts its possibilities then abandons it for another. In the bar area he has seized upon the shapes of church-organ pipes; in the next room they have been inverted and turned into miniature wall-mounted tables, with a single pipe providing a spotlight for the ashtray. Like Picasso (who famously made a cow's head from a bicycle's handlebars and saddle), Chmelik likes to take familiar objects and reinvent them. One of his most successful designs involves marrying a fish-shaped glass plate with a lemon squeezer. A whole shoal of these graces a corridor in the basement. Chmelik claims never to have attended an art exhibition, but he is clearly receptive to the world around him. He cites nature and technology as his chief inspirations and says he is happiest rummaging through Libeňský scrapyard - where, he says, "my rusty and sometimes a bit greasy muse lives." Humble as their origins may be, Chmelik's creations are not mere fixtures but works of art, thanks largely to the happy accident of his being involved in the Cross Club from the beginning. Here he has been able to work in an uncritical atmosphere of absolute creative freedom - and he continues to do so, with new designs appearing almost daily. But there is another aspect of Chmelik's success as a designer, which he reminded me of when I asked him about that lounge light filled with glowing, fizzing red liquid. I wondered if it was safe to have water and electricity in such close proximity. "I never use water," he replied patiently, "only non-conductive oils." It is his thorough training as an electrician that enables him to push the boundaries of lighting design safely - a reassuring thought as you are jostled by a dancing throng in the Cross Club basement, hypnotized by one of his creations. Prague Directory Listing for Cross This article originally appeared in the Czech Business Weekly. 
|
Article added on Fri 7th Oct, 2005 [last updated Mon 10th Oct, 2005]Share this page 
|
| COMMENT ON THIS ARTICLE | ||
| READ ALL NIGHTLIFE ARTICLES MORE NIGHTLIFE ARTICLES |
|
This Week in Prague (May 21-27, 2012) by Prague TV Concert & Party Preview Added on Mon 21st May, 2012 |
|
This Week in Prague (May 14-20, 2012) by Sam Beckwith Concert & Party Preview Added on Mon 14th May, 2012 (Last updated Mon 14th May, 2012) |
|
This Week in Prague (May 7-13, 2012) by Sam Beckwith Concert & Party Preview Added on Sun 6th May, 2012 (Last updated Sun 6th May, 2012) |
|
This Week in Prague (April 30-May 6, 2012) by Sam Beckwith Concert & Party Preview Added on Mon 30th Apr, 2012 (Last updated Mon 7th May, 2012) |
|
This Week in Prague (April 23-29, 2012) by Sam Beckwith The city's best concerts, parties and other happenings over the next seven days Added on Sun 22nd Apr, 2012 (Last updated Mon 7th May, 2012) |
|
This Week in Prague (April 16-22, 2012) by Sam Beckwith Concert & Party Preview Added on Sun 15th Apr, 2012 (Last updated Mon 7th May, 2012) |
|
This Week in Prague (April 9-15, 2012) by Sam Beckwith Concert & Party Preview Added on Sun 8th Apr, 2012 (Last updated Sun 8th Apr, 2012) |
|
This Week in Prague (April 2-8, 2012) by Sam Beckwith Concert & Party Preview Added on Sun 1st Apr, 2012 (Last updated Sun 1st Apr, 2012) |
|
This Week in Prague (March 26-April 1) by Sam Beckwith Concert & Party Preview Added on Sun 25th Mar, 2012 (Last updated Sun 1st Apr, 2012) |
|
This Week in Prague (March 19-25) by Sam Beckwith Concert & Party Preview Added on Sun 18th Mar, 2012 (Last updated Sun 1st Apr, 2012) |
|
This Week in Prague (March 12-18) by Sam Beckwith Concert & Party Preview Added on Sun 11th Mar, 2012 (Last updated Sun 1st Apr, 2012) |
|
This Week in Prague (March 5-11, 2012) by Sam Beckwith Concert & Party Preview Added on Sun 4th Mar, 2012 (Last updated Sun 4th Mar, 2012) |
|
This Week in Prague (February 27-March 4, 2012) by Prague TV Concert & Party Preview Added on Sun 26th Feb, 2012 (Last updated Mon 27th Feb, 2012) |
|
This Week in Prague (February 20-26, 2012) by Prague TV Concert & Party Preview Added on Sun 19th Feb, 2012 (Last updated Mon 20th Feb, 2012) |
|
Prague New Year's Eve Events 2011/12 by Prague TV Prague TV's Party Guide Added on Thu 10th Nov, 2011 (Last updated Thu 29th Dec, 2011) |
| READ ALL NIGHTLIFE ARTICLES |
Visit the Nightlife main page
Find listings, help forums, tips and more
Bar and Books Manesova
New York City's latest export to Prague's exclusive Vinohrady neigh...
Rudolfinum
Best classical music venue in town
Harley's Bar
Where cocktails meet the Party!
Rock Café
Prague's legendary Rock Café club
Futurum Music Bar
The best 80's party in the town!
MORE ARTICLES
Prague TV Home | Contact | About | FAQ | Site Map | Search | Advertise | Privacy | Terms of Service
Prague TV is a Real Time Production. ©2012 All rights reserved.
