The House of the Suicide and the House of the Mother of the Suicide, Memorial sculpture at Jan Palach Square, Prague, Czech Republic.

The House of the Suicide and the House of the Mother of the Suicide are two steel structures by American architect John Hejduk on Alšovo nábřeží near Jan Palach Square. Each has a square footprint of 2.74 metres and rises 7.3 metres with 49 pyramidal spikes. The mother's house is clad in rusted CorTen steel and has a small window; the son's is blasted stainless steel and sealed.

This work commemorates a young man who set himself on fire in 1969 as protest against Soviet occupation of the country. His act became a symbol of resistance that inspired others to take similar action in the following weeks.

The two houses represent a personal relationship frozen in time, with one sealed off and the other open for viewing. Visitors passing through experience the emotional separation the design expresses between two people connected by loss.

The installation sits in Prague's New Town district near the Faculty of Arts and is freely accessible at any time. You can step inside the rust-colored structure and look through its window at the sealed silver one, which works best when lit by daylight.

The Prague monument is the first of Hejduk's structures to be permanently placed in public space; earlier builds in London (1986), Oslo (1989), Philadelphia and Milan were temporary. The steel version was made by Jan Kruntorád's firm Kruntorád Metal Design and unveiled on 16 January 2016, with Hejduk's daughter Renata present.