Czech Hollywood for Havel and Ideal Greater Prague. The ingenious project has not yet been surpassed. Secrets of celebrities
06/29/2022
Photo: Courtesy of the National Film Archive
Caption: Renowned architect and spiritual father of Czech Hollywood Max Urban
PHOTO His love for architecture and his hometown occupied his mind even during his service in the army, so his greatest work was born between 1915 and 1917. At his own discretion, he prepared a study from which Prague councilors can still draw in spatial planning. (Continued from Monday, June 27.)
The utopian vision of our capital, which he called Ideal Greater Prague, represents the complete layout of a modern functional city on seventy-five sheets, supplemented by another thirty pages of manuscript commentaries. Architect Max Urban explains his idea of Prague of Tomorrow, which is probably historically the first complete plan that addressed the territory of the entire city. In April 1919, he exhibited it in the then unfinished Lucerna Palace on Wenceslas Square. His concept was extremely generous in the house of that time. Symmetrical streets, radials, converging on huge squares… Simply a vision with elements of modernist planning based on functions, transport needs and hygiene. Its division into zones, such as Zelená or Dělnické město, was also modernistic. With his approach to the planning and development of the urban structure, Urban was simply somewhat ahead of the Czech situation.
The legendary Barrandov Terraces were inaugurated in September 1929, and during the first day an incredible 50,000 visitors reportedly came to see. From the Lucerna Palace, cheap buses operated by Havel ran to them from morning until midnight; photo courtesy of the Archive of the Capital City of Prague
City in motion
Although his plan was a vision, Urban also outlined realistic strategies, and the future will require implementation. For example, the generously conceived city circuit, the completion of which is unfortunately still in the realm of dreams. “The construction of the city is in constant motion. The city is never finished, it lives, grows, withered leaves fall, and new ones sprout in its place. So my plan is theoretical in this respect, it is a kind of current picture of the movement of city construction, “he wrote in the introduction to his project. He counted one million inhabitants, designed individual functional districts according to conditions, so he divided the city into “City, city of government, business and office, city of diplomacy and cosmopolitan, city in gardens, city of middle class, city of permission, city of labor and residential workers.”
To this day, we have not caught up with him
The plan included public buildings with detailed floor plans, schools of all levels, museums, galleries, theaters and other types of buildings, including their content. In his utopia, he counted them with technical innovations. To the southwest of the generously conceived center place the Garden and Sun City, to the south the Noon and South Workers’ Town, to the southeast the Green City, to the east the characteristic Technical City with the City of Work and to the northeast the City of North. According to him, the basis was a functioning transport system, ie a sophisticated railway network and fourteen subway lines, counted as a “port of air ships”. According to him, they were to fly to all major cities in the world, and the railway connection in his imagination went through Poland, Odessa, Crimea and the Caucasus to Tibet. His concept attracted a lot of attention, media interest and criticism.
A tour for architecture lovers of important film villas in Prague’s Barrandov; photo courtesy of Great Adventures
Eagle luxury on the rock
In the twenties, she successfully participated in a number of urban competitions since the thirties, look at the theory of urbanism. In February 1920, at the same time as the Act on the Establishment of Greater Prague was issued, the State Regulatory Commission for the Capital City of Prague and its Surroundings was established, for which Max worked as secretary from 1924 until the outbreak of World War II. Although the world of film was already deliberately avoiding it at the time, it did not escape the interest of filmmakers due to its architectural abilities. Prague lacked filming space, so in 1927 he was approached by businessman and producer Miloš Havel, at whose request he began working on a project for a large complex for Lucernafilm in Barrandov. And Miloš’s older brother, construction entrepreneur Václav Maria Havel, added a luxurious neighborhood in the immediate vicinity. The luxurious residence of Miloš Havel was built in Barrandovská Street No. 144/17. They were designed by Vladimír Grégr, with whom Max created a design for the famous Barrandov terraces. They grew at almost cosmic speed in 1929, on January 24, the project was assigned to the company and on October 4, the grand opening appeared. Max also created a model Barrandov house number 2, which can be found in Lumiérů Street No. 41.
Czech Hollywood
The Havel studios did not take place until the early 1930s, and he collaborated on the Urban project with studio director Levoslav Reichl, head of technical operations Antonín Pětník, head of laboratories František Rubáš and film architect Vilém Rittershein. was a complex whose scope and equipment did not have a period in Europe at that time. The building was built between 1931 and 1934 and Max Urban won the Grand Prize of the International Exhibition of Art and Technology in Paris in 1937 for his greatest work. He was a member of the Society of Architects and the Association of Architects, the Association of Fine Arts and a number of international organizations and artists participated in a number of urban and architectural competitions.
The entrance building of the Barrandov studios a year after the opening. The first film, the detective film by director Svatopluk Innemann The Murder in Ostrovní Street, began filming here in January 1933; photo courtesy of the Archive of the Capital City of Prague
The spiritual father of Czech cities
In 1946, he was awarded the title of Pioneer of Czechoslovak Cinematography for his work for Czech cinematography. Architecture was also devoted to theory, he was a great writer and from 1933 to 1936 he worked as the editor-in-chief of Styl magazine.. Among other things, he is the author of almost eighty-page manuscript History of Planning and Construction of the Capital City of Prague in 1948, and in two years he became a member of the editorial board of the magazine Architektura ČSR. From 1954 he worked in the urban studio of the State Institute for Designing the Capital City of Prague and his work influenced the development of Czech urban planning. Czech film pioneer and prominent architect Max Urban died on July 17, 1959.
(sources: Wikipedia, CSFD, FDB, Czech film, National Theater, Markéta Žáčková: Max Urban one hundred years Ideal Greater Prague, Famous villas, Internet Center for Architecture, Max Urban: Ideal Greater Prague)
Entered by: Adina Janovská