Martin Strnsk saved the fuel salon in Prague. It’s an Art Nouveau gem
An unmistakable summer house with a beautifully decorated Art Nouveau façade is known to all of Prague as the Topiv salon. The name Topi is also made of mosaics on both sides and on the balcony in the middle.
It refers to the name of the investor and the original house. František Topi was born in 1858 in Chvalno near Roudnice and went to Prague to study at the Business Academy. He earned his living as an ethnicity and in his spare time wrote articles in Czech newspapers urging the national consciousness and the defense of the country against the Germanization.
He reacted to the events of the time when, after 16 years of passive resistance, the deputies were invading the parliament and began to promote their first. From 1880, etina was also allowed to come into contact, and in 1882 the University of Prague was divided into Czech and German.
The National Theater was inaugurated in June 1881, and the National Museum presented its building in May 1891. Interest in the Czech book and art grew, and among the broad strata it was also encouraged by the national awakener and the publisher.
Jan Otto, Josef Richard Vilmek and Frantiek Topi were among the most famous in Prague. Jan Otto has published a unique encyclopedia Ottv slovnk naun since 1888, JR Vilmek has published Humorist Letters, Almanacs and Games. František Topi focused mainly on Czech contemporary authors, who did not want to be illustrated by Czech artists.
He also collaborated with the publishing houses, but František Topi very quickly understood the role of the image of the material for the promotion of the book and the relationships with illustrators, graphic artists and had to build it systematically. Due to them, he founded one of the first private art galleries in the Czech Republic Topiv salon.
Unspoiled talent
František Topi is a well-known example of the fact that the combination of noble death, strong will, diligence and unconventional washing leads to lasting values. There was a coincidence with an unforgettable imprint on Czech history. In 1881, František Topi, a critical article, wrote a word to our business about unsuitable working conditions in a bookstore, which attracted the attention of Frantik Imka, the publisher and owner of Czech newspapers.
He offered him a place of ethnicity, and the young František Topi soon married his wife, Tereza Ulcová. Her grandmother allowed him to open a bookstore on Ferdinand’s Day 9 (Day 9). In fact, only manel worked in nm and tchn cut the publishing concession.
After two years, František imek died and in 1886 František Topi opened a bookstore and publishing house under his own name. In his publications, he tried to popularize Czech culture and consciously consciously, and he invited famous authors such as Boena Nmcová, KH Borovsk, KV Raise, Jan Neruda and Svatopluk Echo to collaborate. He published art books with domestic and world works.
For the new bookstore, František Topi chose the modern Ferdinand’s Tdu, a business artery ending in the National Theater, with 11 bookstores. It was lined with built-in houses in a solid Classicist style, which over time gave way to historic buildings.
He originally moved into a house that belonged to the Prague Association. He had the trees demolished in the ground and connected him into one large space. He then exchanged the Classicist barrel for a large deposit box, in which he also presented current publications, but also music and artistic artifacts.
Mon was inspired by his neighbor, publisher Mikol Lehmann, or he just let the light of art come to pass, which he shared with his wife (a distant relative of the Nprstkov sisters), when he decided to build a sales art gallery.
In two, on top of the former Jezdinsk Plzesk pub, František Topi built a one-storey building with a rectangular floor plan and a glass roof. From June 1894 until the end of operation in 1899, 35 exhibitions by Czech and foreign authors took place here.
From German to the owner
With the growing production and popularity of bookstores, František Topi was looking for new premises. In 1905 he bought from Konstantin Ndhernho and Ervna from Borutno a neighboring dpatrov dm. Lehmann’s gallery was the first to report here. he gave the rights of the house to the architect Oswald Polvek.
The ridge is dominated by a balcony with a suspended central center in the first floor and a distinctive entrance, which is turned by the letter T. The name F. Topi thus betrayed the balcony and mosaics in rounded attic roofs on the sides.
The main entrance has moved from the center to the right, it is also possible to step up and open the main rooms in the country for the needs of the store. A large deposit box lined the street. Topi’s family moved to the first and second floors. František Topi placed the gallery premises in the courtyard between the back sections of the house and used the natural light from above.
During the six years of the salon’s operation, there were 47 exhibitions, which the critics received quite positively, but in the public eye it was not possible to wake up, so the second Topiv salon ended in 1911.
During the First Worlds of Wolves, František Topi cooperated with the resistance organization Maffia and the expulsion of an independent Czechoslovakia crowned his many years of efforts. He thus opened a new exhibition hall, in the same identical space that he had Oswald Polvka built over the original hall, which in the meantime served as a book store. New ones entered it by stairs from the street, just like now.
In competition with the newly emerging galleries, Topiv salon profiled itself as a scene of Czech, Slovak and French art and a soft exhibition space. Critics often blamed him for the volatile quality of the program.
Finann’s crisis in the 1930s also hit Topi’s bookstore, but it ceased operations and the death of his only son, Jaroslav. In 1936, five years before his death, František Topi sold the house and bookstore to Jaroslav Strnsk.
Prask cultural center
Jaroslav Strnsk cultivated the editorial staff of Lidové noviny and the Fr. Borov, who owned. The salon was restored in November 1937 in the basement of the building and turned into a prominent Czech cultural center.
He gave discussions, theater performances for children and adults, concerts and, of course, performances. Due to his Jewish origin, he went into exile, and for the second time in Norway, when he resigned as a minister of the customs and enlightenment in protest of the Norwegian coup. The publishing house operated under the name of Czechoslovak writers and the exhibition space under the Union of Czechoslovak Art Artists.
The Strnskch family lived in London, their son Jan founded Pavel Tigrid Rdio Free Europe in Munich and then went to New York with Ferdinand Peroutka. Martin Jan Strnsk was born here, who studied art and medicine in the USA and came to Prague during the Velvet Revolution.
From an early age, I took it for granted that whenever I could, I would devote myself to the cult of this city. When the then editor-in-chief of Lidové noviny, Ji Ruml, asked us to cooperate, I immediately arrived. It turned out that one of the monosts was the restitun kon and restitution of both houses on Nrodn, describes the arrest of this anabze.
All marble, metal and cast iron equipment was destroyed before the buildings were taken over. In Nrodn 9 they managed to dismantle and take it away, on Nrodn 11 we rescued St from a freight car and had it restored. There was a warehouse for heating fuel oil in the basement for 40 years, there was water, leelo lut linoleum on the floor, the rooms were vacated, Martin Jan Strnsk recalls. He received 75 million from the esk bank and started repairs. The bank went bankrupt and Martin Strnsk decided to negotiate with the leaders.
After 13 years of cooperation with pamtki dm completely repaired. The Art Nouveau facade was acquired and in 2017 thanks to a grant from Prague 1. After the reconstruction of the house was completed in 2007, the Topiv salon pop was restored.
Fuel dm is a symbol of esk culture. I wanted to make a tradition, so I approached the auction with 1. Art Consulting BrnoPrague, explains Martin Jan Strnsk. She rented the first floor as an office and gallery for the pedaukn exhibition. In the meantime, it is filled with the short-term exhibition submitted by the Society of Topio’s Salon, which was founded by the builder and art lover Pavel Vaek.
This created an original and creative cooperation between the auction and a non-profit organization, financed from public budgets and various grants. The invaders here see the classic and new directions in the current art. Anna Kuerov, the company’s executive at Topiova salon, describes the council of the company, which is only ten artistic communities, which together compile a full exhibition with a view to show what is not visible in Prague.
Pavel Vaek ran the gallery until 2015, when he died suddenly. He thus initiated an edition of publications on the history of Topio’s salon and its exhibition principles, which maps the history of its establishment in 1894 to 2017.