Opening to the public Three reconstructed Adolf Loos Interiors in Pilsen
03/03/2015.
[Pilsen] Czech Republic
metalocus, JOSÉ JUAN BARBA
metalocus, JOSÉ JUAN BARBA
This autumn a interesting first-republic apartment in Bendova Street, Czech city of Pilsen, with unique Loos design in the drawing room, the dining room and the bedroom, including valuable marble facing, superposed glass walls and practically designed fitted furniture in the bedroom will be made open for public. The guided tour of the Loos Interiors includes also two rooms (salon and dining room) in 12 Klatovska Street. These are the unique rooms of the apartment which Adolf Loos designed for the doctor Josef Vogel.
The Interior of Vilem and Gertruda Kraus Family (in 10 Bendova Street) by Adolf Loos. Image courtesy of 2015 Pilsen European Capital of Culture. Photograph @ Petr Polák, Lucie Pumprová, Matěj Hošek
The Interior of Vilem and Gertruda Kraus Family (in 10 Bendova Street) by Adolf Loos. Image courtesy of 2015 Pilsen European Capital of Culture.
The Interior of Vilem and Gertruda Kraus Family (in 10 Bendova Street) by Adolf Loos. Image courtesy of 2015 Pilsen European Capital of Culture. Photograph @ Petr Polák, Lucie Pumprová, Matěj Hošek
The Interior of Vilem and Gertruda Kraus Family (in 10 Bendova Street) by Adolf Loos. Image courtesy of 2015 Pilsen European Capital of Culture. Photograph @ Petr Polák, Lucie Pumprová, Matěj Hošek
The Interior of Vilem and Gertruda Kraus Family (in 10 Bendova Street) by Adolf Loos. Image courtesy of 2015 Pilsen European Capital of Culture. Photograph @ Petr Polák, Lucie Pumprová, Matěj Hošek
The Interior of Vilem and Gertruda Kraus Family (in 10 Bendova Street) by Adolf Loos. Image courtesy of 2015 Pilsen European Capital of Culture. Click above to see larger image.
The Interior of Vilem and Gertruda Kraus Family (in 10 Bendova Street) by Adolf Loos. Image courtesy of 2015 Pilsen European Capital of Culture. Click above to see larger image.
The Interior of Vilem and Gertruda Kraus Family (in 10 Bendova Street) by Adolf Loos. Image courtesy of 2015 Pilsen European Capital of Culture.
The Interior of Vilem and Gertruda Kraus Family (in 10 Bendova Street) by Adolf Loos. Image courtesy of 2015 Pilsen European Capital of Culture.
The Interior of Vilem and Gertruda Kraus Family (in 10 Bendova Street) by Adolf Loos. Image courtesy of 2015 Pilsen European Capital of Culture. Photograph @ Petr Polák, Lucie Pumprová, Matěj Hošek
The Interior of Vilem and Gertruda Kraus Family (in 58 Husova Street) by Adolf Loos. Image courtesy of 2015 Pilsen European Capital of Culture. Photograph @ Petr Polák, Lucie Pumprová, Matěj Hošek
The Interior of Vilem and Gertruda Kraus Family (in 58 Husova Street) by Adolf Loos. Image courtesy of 2015 Pilsen European Capital of Culture. Photograph @ Petr Polák, Lucie Pumprová, Matěj Hošek
The Brummel House ( 58 Husova Street) by Adolf Loos. Image courtesy of 2015 Pilsen European Capital of Culture.
The Oskar and Jana Semler House (12 Klatovska Street) by Adolf Loos. Image courtesy of 2015 Pilsen European Capital of Culture. Photograph @ Petr Polák, Lucie Pumprová, Matěj Hošek
The Oskar and Jana Semler House (12 Klatovska Street) by Adolf Loos. Image courtesy of 2015 Pilsen European Capital of Culture. Photograph @ Petr Polák, Lucie Pumprová, Matěj Hošek
The Oskar and Jana Semler House (12 Klatovska Street) by Adolf Loos. Image courtesy of 2015 Pilsen European Capital of Culture. Photograph @ Petr Polák, Lucie Pumprová, Matěj Hošek
The Oskar and Jana Semler House (10 Klatovska Street) by Adolf Loos. Image courtesy of 2015 Pilsen European Capital of Culture. Click above to see larger image.
The Oskar and Jana Semler House (10 Klatovska Street) by Adolf Loos. Image courtesy of 2015 Pilsen European Capital of Culture. Click above to see larger image.
The Oskar and Jana Semler House (10 Klatovska Street) by Adolf Loos. Image courtesy of 2015 Pilsen European Capital of Culture. Click above to see larger image.
The Oskar and Jana Semler House (10 Klatovska Street) by Adolf Loos. Image courtesy of 2015 Pilsen European Capital of Culture. Click above to see larger image.
The Oskar and Jana Semler House (10 Klatovska Street) by Adolf Loos. Image courtesy of 2015 Pilsen European Capital of Culture. Click above to see larger image.
Completing a group of works in the same city, from April visitors to the Czech city of Pilsen will be able to visit three restored interiors designed by architect Adolf Loos in the early 20th century.
Adolf Loos worked in Pilsen in two periods, between the years 1907 – 1910 and 1927 – 1932. His clients were primarily the families of entrepreneurs from the rich Pilsen Jewish community. After of World War II many of these homes were abandoned, some were later used as offices by Czechoslovakia's government, while others were demolished by their tenants. Today, of Adolf loos' designs in Pensil only eight remain.
This year as a European Capital of Culture, Pilsen embarked on a project to restore several of these spaces. Properties at 12 Klatovská Street and 10 Bendova Street were restored last year, and as of April both these and the newly renovated Brummel House at 58 Husova Street will be open to the public.
The Brummel House ( 58 Husova Street)
The house and equipment reconstruction of the interior was designed by Adolf Loos for Jan and Jana Brummel in 58 Husova Street, the realization was finished in 1929. The house survived not only the massive bombing of the Skoda plants at the end of the Second World War but also the attempts of various state offices for its demolition in the 80´s of the 20th century. After the war the house was returned to the family members of the original owners. A private owner, a relative of the constructors, is renovating the house in a sensitive way and plans its opening for public within the guided tour of the Loos Interiors at the beginning of the tourist season in 2015.
Brummel House, which survived bombing and several demolition attempts, was returned to the family of its original owners Jan and Jana Brummel after the war was over. A private owner recently undertook its renovation and it will be unveiled for the first time in April. Tour details can be found on the city's website.
The Oskar and Jana Semler House (10 Klatovska Street)
Although Adolf Loos´s the most famous element used in many of his interior installations is a so-called Raumplan, in Pilsen this element is used only in the interior designed for Oskar and Jana Semler by the student and colleague of Adolf Loos Heinrich Kulka in the villa house 110 Klatovska Street. The element of Raumplan creates its effect by various distributions of individual room ceilings heights. The house with its interior is currently maintained by the West Bohemian Gallery. The Gallery plans to establish a Documentation Centre for Architectonic Studies of the 19th and 20th Century in Pilsen Region after the renovation of the house. Also this interior shall be partly opened for public.
The Interior of Vilem and Gertruda Kraus Family (in 10 Bendova Street)
One of the most beautiful Pilsen apartment interiors was designed by Adolf Loos for the needs of chemist specialist Vilem Kraus and his wife Gertruda between the years 1930 to 1931. The family of Jewish origin was affected by a grievous fate at the end of the 1930s. Vilem left for England in 1939 to prepare a new home for his family there. Unfortunately, his wife and children did not manage to flee and deceased in extermination camps.
The most valuable part of the apartment is the drawing room interconnected with dining room. Its superposed glassed walls create the effect of the so-called infinite enfilade, which means an endlessly multiplied image. The room is faced by white-green marble Cipollino; the ceiling is formed by black mahogany tiles. The hall as a whole creates a magical impression. The bedroom provides an example of comfortably fitted built-in wardrobes.
More information
Adolf Loos
Adolf Loos (December 10, 1870, Brno, Moravia - August 23, 1933, Kalsburg, Austria). His father, a craftsman, had a workshop where Adolf obtained his first lessons that were essential during the course of his career. After several failures trying to enter the school of architecture, he finally started studying at the Professional School of Reichenberg (Austria), and between 1890 and 1893 at the Dresden Polytechnic without obtaining the title of architect at the end. In 1893 he traveled to the United States to see the Universal Exhibition of Chicago, where he completed his training during his stay as he was in contact with the Anglo-Saxon culture which influenced his aesthetic criteria. After visiting Londo and Paris, in 1896 he settled in Vienna working as an architect.
He worked as a furniture designer at the company F.O.Schmidt with his first order the Kohlmarkt Hall in 1897. In 1899 he revolutionized viennese architecture with the construction of the Café Museum and in 1908 wrote his famous article Ornament and crime, where he expounded his idea of dispensing the ornament. He founded his own construction school in 1912, which had to close because of World War I, and in 1920 he was appointed chief architect of the Viennese City Council, resigning in 1924 because of his social principles, moving to Paris for the next five years.
He was a pioneer within the modern movement because he supported the no use of ornamentation and the break with historicism, being a precursor of the architectural rationalism. From his postulates, where he oppose art and utility and saw the architecture only from the utility field, he positioned against the modernists. These had formed the Viennese Secession and held an antagonistic view of architecture. He came into contact with the European artistic avant-gardes of the moment, such as Schönberg or Kokoschka.
The architecture of Adolf Loos is characterized by being functional and take into account the qualities of new materials. For him, architecture is different from the other applied arts, it is the mother of all; having to be functional and dispose of ornamentation.
One of his greatest concerns was to provide humans with a modern life, a western culture with no differences. In his magazine Das Andere, founded in 1903, he reflected all these problems, introducing the concept of Raumplan, where Loos awarded each space a different importance. According to the importance of the room and its vision within the total volume of the building, it had a different size and height. Thus he discovers the concrete space where human life unfolds.
Among his outstanding works we find the intervention at the Coffee Museum (Vienna, 1899), the Villa Karma (Switzerland, 1903-1906), the Steiner houses (Vienna, 1910), the Goldman Tailors and Salatsch, also known as Loos House, (Vienna, 1910) and the project Chicago Tribune Column (1922). Amongst his last works, some of them built in France, are the Tristan Tzara House (Paris, 1926), the Moller House (Vienna, 1928) and the Müller House (Prague, 1930), becoming an important influential teacher in the architectures of Gropius, Le Corbusier and other postwar architects.
