The doors on the infamous Repré Klub closed for good in 1994. Housed in the lower floor of Obecní Dům, a stunning Art Nouveau masterpiece built in the first decade of the 20th century – and largely neglected during the Communist era – the club was forced to shut down when the Czech government decided to renovate the once glamorous, now dilapidated, municipal hall.

Entrance to the going-away bash was by invitation only and was one of the hottest tickets in the expat community. Fortunately, I knew the girlfriend of the owner, a devastatingly beautiful blonde Czech girl with green eyes and armor-piercing cheekbones. Her name was Marketa and she made sure I had two invites. Looking back, I’m not sure how many people at that last party actually remember it – I found out afterwards that everyone but me was on acid. Once the party started, the owners told us to let loose on the place and we did, smashing chairs and dancing on tables while a mass of revelers stripped to nearly nothing, jumped onstage, and spent hours dousing each other with water sprayed out of soda bottles. Loud, decadent and depraved, it was a going-away bash fitting for the mighty Repré.

The lights came on at the end of the night – a night now easing into sunrise – revealing the shattered remains of wooden chairs and bar stools, discarded items of clothing, plastic soda bottles, beer glasses and drenched bodies standing, slumping, dancing and jumping. The DJ queued one last song and as American Pie filled the room we all took seats on the tables, swinging mugs of beer in time with the music and singing along with the chorus. There’s one way to find every American, Canadian, Brit, Ozzie and Kiwi in a crowded bar, Virginia, and it’s to play “American Pie.”

All that’s changed now, of course. A lot changes in a city in twelve years and I’m not sure the Czechs really want to remember those few years that the Repré was down there in the bowels of Obecní Dům. The Repré Klub is now Smetana Hall and, instead of hosting stoned patrons crashed on couches waiting for dawn and for the Metro to start back up, it now hosts the Prague Symphony Orchestra. The kavárna, a massive pivnice serving hearty Czech food and lots and lots of pilsner is still in business in the basement in the opposite corner of the building. The Repré's bar still exists, but they've classed it up and it's now called the American Bar and sits just to the left of the door to Smetana Hall. We didn’t get the chance to go into Smetana Hall itself as it is closed when not being used for a performance, but the photo up top gives an idea what the interior of this gorgeous building looks like today. It certainly show a much healthier version of the interior than what I knew back in 1994!

Note: The images of Smetana Hall were photographed by Andras Praefcke and are publised here under the GNU Free Documentation license. The original images can be found here.