RONDOCUBISM (Czech National style)

NATIONAL STYLE
(Became a national version of Euro American Art Deco)
Policy of expressing patriotic qualities and establishing contact with the public was markedly
different from the prewar goals (prewar goals: distance from society, elite production, rejected
servitude and functionality, art is an independent activity and has no obligations except to
itself)
It was dependent on the wave of patriotic enthusiasm (and faded along with it)
Pavel Jank: "It must, if it is to be a national architecture, turn from creating its own order
to organizing the purpose of Czech life."
A Third of the Way (article published shortly after the establishing of Czechoslovakia)
1) Displacement of the grammar of the old styles
2) Search for the new order of architecture and domination of spirit
over matter Cubism
3) Social and utilitarian goals
In contrast to:
Josef Chochol (1914): "True art never tries to please or feels obliged for attention given
to it. It knows no concern but its own laws."
Folkloric quality:

Color (red and yellow, white and red) is used to evoke traditional Slavic
folk architecture
Plastic shapes reminiscent of wooden decoration of folk arch.

Social aspect:

Reestablishing contact with the public through the use of ornament

Characteristics:

Faade is the main interest (plastic treatment of the surface and its
individual elements)
Color
Decoration: Circular
Crest-shaped
Rectangular ornaments

EXAMPLES
Josef Gor: (leading personality of the period, after the death of Jan Kotra he became a
professor at the Academy)
Legionaries Bank, Na Po Street (1921-23); uses new understandable grammar
consisting of round decoration (circles, semi-circles, annular sections), sculptural
decoration: Frieze by Otto Gutfreund (Return of the Legionaires), Relief panels by
Jan tursa (Legions in Italy, France, Russia); entrance reminds of a triumphal arch;
interior: main hall in the shape of three intersecting cylinders
Hradec Krlov Masaryks Square (1922-24)
Pavel Jank
Adriatica Insurance Company on Jungmanns Square (1922-25); interest in historical
architecture (resembles of early Italian Renaissance in Tuscany - towers); decorative
details: gables, cornice, sculpture; color
Crematorium in Pardubice (1921-22); Slavic character

CRITIQUE of CUBISM
Otakar Novotn: "The movement of matter is a seductive slogan through this attempt
architects discovered the danger formal anarchy in their work."
"Architect with his practical spirit of course understands the danger of his ways and returns to
natural tectonics, now enriched by the motility of form."
Le Corbusier: In 1925 while lecturing in Prague he mentioned the resistance to modern
architecture pointing at a nearby Adriatica Insurance building and describing it as "massive
building of Assyrian character".
Karel Teige: "Modern architects designing peasant cupboards and baroque chests"

NEO-CLASSICISM
In the early 1920s several architectural styles competed for the privilege of becoming the
official style. The most prestigious commissions went to neoclassicist (New ministry
buildings, Schools and University buildings).
Characteristics:

Rationality
Symmetry
Monumentality
Exaggerated size
Noble discipline
Elements from classical antiquity: Gables, Porticoes with columns,
Cornices, Pilasters

Antonn Engel
Wagners pupil (had a reputation as a pioneer of modern rationalism); became a professor at
the Czech Polytechnic was teaching in the conservative tradition; uses most classical
vocabulary
Town planning of Dejvice; uses Wagners orthogonal principles; center becomes
Victory Square; spacious rectangle ending in a semicircle at its northwest side; fan of
main avenues; star-shaped network is complemented by a system of circular roads
(was not completed)
Aims at creating: "safe and definite style which disregards the passing fashionable
ambitions" and a "universal formal expression"
Filtration Station in Podol (1923-28); monumental clearly defined blocks balanced,
symmetrical and monotonous; articulated by giant pilasters,
Monumentality is according to Engel of "metaphysical origin" it is the "highest
expression of striving for all the stable, lasting, eternal qualities that stand above the
ephemeral nature of things quotidian."
Ministry of Railways on the Ludvk Svobodas Embankment
Criticized for: Dry schematism
Lack of substantial architectural ideas
Result of outdated theories
Bohumil Hypman (Hbschmann)

 Ministry of Social Welfare, Ministry of Health on Palacks Square (1924-31);

symmetric blocks framing a square, well balanced, clearly demarcated and defined
areas; features taken from classical architecture: pergolas, obelisks, terrace ramps

JOSIP PLENIK (1872 1957)

Personal history:
Slovene
Wagners pupil (1894/98) proposed to be his successor but was refused because of
political reasons
Journey to Italy
1910 invited to Prague by Jan Kotra
Professor of decorative architecture at the school of Applied Arts (1911-21)
Restoration of Prague Castle: He was chosen by T. G. Masaryk (Who aimed at establishing a
closer link with the Southern Slavs)
Spiritual, religious man: his style was described as determined by his faith and he himself
was seen as a man of quasi-ascetic rigor, believer whose creative production is underlined
by his moral consciousness
Characteristics:

Poetic approach
Individual treatment of classical elements (like a baroque architect he is
not concerned with rules governing old architectural elements)
Feel for noble materials (metal, stone)
Deeply personal (Does not imitate)
Understanding for the uniqueness of the building site
Relationship with nature
Juxtaposition of abstract and figurative (similar to Art Nouveau
tendencies)
Rational (but also symbolic) division of space and areas
Power of individual form (decorated the Prague Castle area by many
small architectural gems)

Synthesis:

Of classical architecture and modern style (antiquity seen through modern

eyes and modernism seen through the eyes of antiquity)
Various ancient sources of inspiration (Greece, Rome, Crete, Egypt)
Absolute architecture:
Transcends functional necessities
Is concerned with ideas of nobility and beauty
Unlike his colleagues Neo-classicists:
Criticized:

Is not dry and monotonous

His works are of human scale

By the conservative architects for his supranational character

By functionalists for being too conservative
By the supporters of conservation program for being too radical

WORKS:
Church of the Sacred Heart (1928-32)
Restoration of Prague Castle (from 1920 onwards)