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Czech Cubism and Modernism

Salv

One Too Many
Messages
1,247
Location
Just outside London
Inspired by a quote from an Agatha Christie Poirot novel on another thread that mentions Czechoslovak industry in the 1930's I thought I'd start a thread dedicated to the relatively unknown history of Czech Cubism and Modernism. This is a subject I only started reading about last year when myself and my family visited friends who have relocated from the UK to a town just south of Prague.

Cubist art, especially the work of Picasso and Braque, was hugely influential on a small group of architects based in Prague in 1910. Pavel Jan?ɬ°k, Josef Goc?ɬ°r, Josef Chochol and Vlastislav Hofman took the concepts of Cubist painting and applied them to buildings, furniture and decorative objects. The first Cubist building was Goc?ɬ°rs House At the Black Madonna, completed in 1912:
madonna.jpg

This was originally a department store, but today houses a Cubist shop called Kubista, and The Museum of Czech Cubism.

Others followed with the most interesting being designed by Josef Chochol - in 1912/13 this house:
f42.jpg

and in 1913/14 this apartment building:
f25.jpg

Detail of the windows:
f180.jpg


Cubist objects appeared as early as 1911 including this crystalline box by Pavel Jan?ɬ°k:
cc001.jpg

...and these fantastic vases, also by Janak, which still look startlingly modern, nearly 100 years on:
cc004.jpg

...and this coffee set, again by Janak:
cc002d.jpg

From the same year there's the Hofman Chair, designed by Vlastislav Hofman:
cc009.jpg

(Images from http://www.modernista.cz)

The Cubist movement died out during World War 1 but echoes were still to be found post-WW1 in new buildings by Goc?ɬ°r and Jan?ɬ°k.
 

Salv

One Too Many
Messages
1,247
Location
Just outside London
...and Modernism

Modernism flourished from the late 1920's onwards, with Adolf Loos and Ludwig Mies van der Rohe designing beautiful houses in Brno and Prague. Loos' Villa Muller in Prague:
X2a.jpg


...and Mies' stunning, graceful Villa Tugendhat in Brno:
0015b.jpg


Furniture had a lightness and delicacy - these cantilever steel and plywood chairs were produced by the Moravian company M?ɬºcke-Melder in the early 1930s:
f001.jpg


and this desk was produced by a company called Vichr throughout the 1930s:
f002.jpg


Possibly the most prolific furniture designer was Jindrich Halabala who was head designer for the UP manufacturing company in Brno between 1930 and 1946. His pieces included this reclining armchair:
f004a.jpg

...this tubular steel armchair:
f006.jpg

...this coffee table:
f010.jpg

...and this settee:
f011.jpg


New York area Loungers interested in seeing more Czech Modernist and Art Deco furniture should make their way to Prague Kolektiv in Brooklyn which seems to have the largest stock of Czech furniture outside the Czech Republic. Visitors to Prague can check out Modernista and the afore-mentioned Kubista.
 

Marc Chevalier

Gone Home
Messages
18,192
Location
Los Feliz, Los Angeles, California
The problem with all great architectural styles is that most architects aren't great. They take a design by Janák. Le Corbusier or van der Rohe, adapt it to their own inferior talents, cut corners, and build monstrosities. Much of the Third World lies choking under tons of poured concrete abominations from the '50s, '60s and even '70s. Have you ever seen what humid weather does to concrete?

.
 

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