100 years ago, apartment buildings in the original Czechoslovak rondocubist style began to be built in Polička. Only one building is protected as a monument. The image from March 8, 2023 shows rondocubist houses on the Svoboda embankment.
Polička (Svitava region) – 100 years ago, apartment buildings in the original Czechoslovak rondocubist style began to be built in Polička in the Svitava region. According to the design of architects Václav Flégl and Oldřich Liska, four were built on the Svoboda embankment, and five were built in E. Beneš Street. Although a similar ensemble in this architectural style is exceptional in the Czech Republic, only one building is protected, art historian David Junek from the Polička City Museum and Gallery told ČTK.
Advertisement'; }
Photo Gallery
The building in E. Beneše Street, no. 389. According to preservationists, the authentically preserved building demonstrates the high level of interwar housing construction. It has been preserved for the most part, including opening elements, fittings or stair railings.
In the 1920s, the apartment buildings were built by the city with state support from the Ministry of Public Works. In order to obtain it, the architect Flégl simplified the original richly articulated facades of the group on the Svoboda embankment designed by Liska, which lost their plasticity and ceased to differ from each other. However, the floor plan was preserved. Other buildings in E. Beneš Street were designed only by Flégl. According to Junko, the effort to save was also reflected in the use of cheaper joinery elements, for example the doors have only simple smooth fillings.
After 1989, Polička decided to sell off the apartment buildings, as they were not in good condition. The new owners often proceeded with inappropriate repairs that disturbed the original appearance of the buildings. Somewhere, for example, they had plastic windows installed, and inappropriate colors were used on the facades.
The set of rondocubist buildings in Polička is completed by the houses in Rumunská street with the descriptive numbers 410 and 411, which were designed by an as yet unknown architect for military employees of the local munitions factory. An important building of this style in Polička is also the Tylův dům by the architects Antonín Mendel and Václav Šantrůček.
Rondocubism, also called arched cubism, Czech art deco, national style, national decorativism or the third cubist style, is a specific style of architecture and applied art used in Czechoslovakia, especially during the period of the first republic. The most prominent representatives of this style include, for example, the Pardubice Crematorium by Pavel Janák and František Kysela, the Legiobank in Prague by Josef Gočár or Janák's Adria Palace in Prague.
