The Dancing House

Those two towers leaning into each other have a story as unlikely as their shape. Locals call them Fred and Ginger, after the legendary dance duo Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers, because that's exactly what they look like: one figure solid and grounded in concrete, the other twisting upward in glass, both caught mid-step together.

The plot they stand on was empty from 1945 until the mid-1990s. An American bomb destroyed whatever stood here before, and for decades nobody filled the gap. Then Václav Havel, the president of Czechoslovakia and later the Czech Republic, who lived right next door, decided something bold should rise in its place.

The architects were Vlado Milunić and Frank Gehry. And when Gehry's design appeared, this riverside neighborhood, surrounded by Baroque, Gothic, and Art Nouveau architecture, pushed back hard. People called it an eyesore. Critics said it destroyed the skyline. Gehry came close to walking away entirely. He only stayed because Havel personally asked him to see it through.

The building went up between 1992 and 1996, and Gehry reportedly hated the nickname when it caught on. He wanted people to see architecture, not a metaphor. The restaurant at the top offers sweeping views across the river, which means you can now pay for the privilege of admiring a building that was once considered an insult to the city.