ABSTRACT
Cubism was one of the foundational movements of twentieth-century modernism, but it is one that historians of the visual arts frequently view as concerned primarily with painting and centered in Paris. This chapter discovers some of the original background of Czech Cubism. It reveals overlooked linkages between the body and Cubist architectural space as well as debts owed to the seemingly uncorporeal style of Late Bohemian Gothic. Unlike modernists to come, Cubists did not outright eschew precedents for their architectural creations; being surrounded by an array of original and captivating buildings from the mid to late Central European Gothic, they might have been interested in the pointy, jabbing, faceted forms of Gothic. The Cubists seem to have seen Gothic through the eyes and mind of Worringer rather than simply turning them to inspiring examples of their regional Gothic.
