The Radost house in Žižkov was built by architects Karel Honzík and Josef Havlíček. What else did they suggest?
And that the Radost House, formerly also known as the House of Trade Unions, is remarkable, there is no doubt about that. With my At 52 meters in 1934, this functionalist colossus became the tallest building in Bohemia, which is why it is sometimes nicknamed the first Prague skyscraper. At the same time, it is also an originally conceived building – instead of traditional square or rectangular ones floor plans the authors reached for the unconventional cross, thanks to which the building is permeated with daylight throughout.
The first house is no longer worth it
When Havlíček and Honzík decided to work on the proposal of the General Pension Institute, today known as the House of Joy, both were still “milkmen” who had a bright future ahead of them. Havlicek was born in Prague on May 5, 1899, Honzík came from the town of Le Croisic in France, and he was even born on 9/24/1900. When they worked on the Radost house, they were both just past the age of thirty.
They already had a few realizations, on which they collaborated with other own projects of Czech architecture. The first joint realization led them to cooperate with each other – “the family house of the journalist Karel Jíše in Prague in Smíchov, a work that does not deny their main source of inspiration, the work of the Swiss architect Le Corbusier,” states Dita Dvořáková and Prokop Rebo in the book General Pension Institute, House of Trade Unions from 2014. Interesting villa it stood until 2018 in the street U Dívče hradůbefore the Prague 5 Building Authority allowed its demolition and there is not even a trace of it left.
From the trenches to the drawing board
There would have been many missing, and we would not have received any memorials specifically from Josef Havlíček. Architecture was largely predestined for this – his mom Kamila Havlíčková was sby the famous architect Bohumil Hypšman, who built industrial sites in Hostivař, Holešovice and Vysočany, but also buildings in Bubench, Střešovice and in the center of the capital. Street Hypsmanovawhich we would be looking for in Šeberov, Prague, is named after him. And maybe that’s why Havlíček, his nephew, was inclined towards architecture.
However, he had to undergo dangerous anabasis on the Italian front during the First World War. As is known, many people never returned home from the battlefields. Havlíček was lucky – graduated from CTU, and already in the 1920s “as an independent architect, he applied himself through implementation of four terraced houses of the officers’ construction cooperative in Prague-Dejvice, in Kafková street 23-29,” says Dvořáková, who is an art historian, and photographer Rebo. In the 1920s, Havlíček also designed the current form of the border orientation poles.
The former House of Trade Unions is now called Radost and is to be opened to the public.
Author: Jiří Marek
A villa for a famous writer
Karel Honzík’s father, Jaroslav, was an academic painter. However, Karel himself soon became inclined towards design and architecture, which he also studied at Prague’s CTU in the interwar period. “With classmates Jaroslav Fragner, Vít Obrtel and Evžen Linhart, he founded the so-called Purist Four, an informal architectural association with which he joined Devětsil in 1923,” writes Dvořáková with Reb. He was strong from his architectural beginnings fascinated by Le Corbusier – after all, he later applied this influence during the construction of the Žižkov “tile factory”. The young architects corresponded with Le Corbusier regarding their project.
Honzík’s first independent realization in 1927 was not “just like that”. In Prague’s Podolí designed a villa for František Langr – to a well-known writer, among others also a legionnaire from the First World War. We would still find a villa on a sloping plot in Nad Cementárnou Street today. And we could recognize the author of the house Radost in her, with a bit of presumption, at the first, perhaps the second, if not the third good one. Not long after this realization, he and Havlíček began to work together. Although Honzík himself designed a number of projects, his “the largest architectural realization was the central building of the General Pension Institute in Prague in Žižkov,” balances Dvořáková with Prokop Rebo.
Courageous “Nuselák”
Even for Havlíček, this realization meant writing in history. However, we can read from his biography that he was looking for megalomaniacal challenges, and he entered other projects into the history of architecture, let’s just say that of the world.
“He did it independently unified solution for the facades of a block of apartment buildings in Prague-Bubenč, at 72-96 Milady Horákové Street (the so-called Moloch),” we learn from the book. In Poděbrady, he built the sanatorium there on 9. května street 1. Together with Jaroslav Polívka, they planned, just like many Czech architects bridging Nusel Valley, and a very bold proposal. “The bridge piers formed twelve-story residential buildings,” points out Dvořáková and Rebo.
The famous tower blocks from Kladno
Havlíček was also extensively involved in urban planning. Among other things, his big dream was reconstruction of the New Town of Prague, but also of Žižkov, which never happened. In contrast, in cooperation with František Bartoš and Vlastibor Klimeš, he designed residential complex-settlement Labská Kotlina in Hradec Králové.
He also designed housing estates in Ostrava and Litvínov. The most famous in terms of housing construction are his “towers” in Kladno-Rozdělov. These are still considered to be one of the most original housing estate-panel buildings, which deviated from socialist architecture. However, it tied his hands in many ways, and many of his “bold” visions and proposals never came to fruition. After all, not even the ones he planned with Honzík in Žižkov.
The well-known tower blocks in Kladno were designed by Josef Havlíček.
Author: wikimedia.commons
New Žižkov?
House Radost is apparently the most famous work of both architects. During their lifetime, they were exposed to considerable disappointment, which spoiled their plans for the location in which they placed their original functional building. The General Pension Institute, later the House of Trade Unions and today the Radost sice je house dominant in its surroundings, the imaginary centerpiece of Winston Churchill Square. Both creators hoped that the square would be larger and that the surrounding area would remain undeveloped.
“They created plan of park improvement of the area in front of the main entrance and regulation of blocks around its perimeter. It’s even more so outraged the proposal for the construction of a trade school, today Universities of economics,” says Dita Dvořáková with Prokop Rebo. “Architects started a campaign against the project and presented their own urban planning solution.” Basically, they planned a fungl new district that would extend to Sladkovské náměstí. Nothing to pay. VŠE building, although it is a frequent target of anonymous people who report bombs in itas is known, it still stands and educates thousands of economists and other experts.
I stand the same way as the apartment buildings along Seifert Street, which the architects planned to demolish because they considered them “a nonconformist collection of the most banal houses“, and replace with your own projects. They thought of building according to “ffunctionalist urban planning schemes,” where “in addition to residential buildings, services and an international hotel,” there would also be a concert and congress center for 3,000 listeners.
Honzík and Havlíček’s plan for park improvements around their building definitely failed, as well as the construction of their neighborhood and concert center. As is well known today, it will be created on the Vltava River. At least they came true – the Radost house with its peculiar cross-shaped floor plan is surrounded by squares on two sides.
The authors of Dom Radost planned to spread out a large square in front of it. But their plan didn’t work out. Although two smaller squares surround the house on two sides, they protested against the construction of the VŠE building. (illustrative photo)
Author: ČTK
You would think that…
… although Žižkov is often nicknamed the “tile factory”. the first Prague skyscraperits authors oppose this designation fenced off? “It was not at all about building a kind of skyscraper en miniatures at any cost – but simply with the reduced built-up area, resulting from free development, it was necessary to design a building several floors higher, than when fencing yards,” they agreed in a joint statement. When working on a “bespoke” project, they did not keep to the brief, which counted on a square floor plan and walled courtyards, but instead came up with an original cross-shaped floor plan, which they increased to accommodate the required number of employees.
The Prague cinema Přítomnost is unique in its layout, arrangement of outdoor lighting and a bar with staff. You are in the basement of Dom Radost. David Winter
The well-known tower blocks in Kladno were designed by Josef Havlíček.
Author: wikimedia.commons