Between Brno and the Bauhaus
The Czech Republic and the Bauhaus
World Teachers’ Day on 5 October reminds us each year of the important role that educators play in providing high-quality education. To mark this occasion, we met a duo of young architects from Brno and asked them whether the ideas of the Bauhaus are still relevant to the students at Czech schools of architecture today, and if so, how.
Ondřej Chybík and Michal Krištof, if someone were to compare the studio building in Dessau with one of the facades of your housing at Waltrovka in Prague, there are some striking parallels. Rectangular, white, restrained – and of course, the balconies. What do you think about this aesthetic similarity?
OC: At Waltrovka, the outer form is a faithful reflection of the internal composition of the building. It is a residential building consisting of affordable flats. In formal terms, simple volumes are complemented by sculptural elements, namely the balconies. Apart from that, there was one other important thing that we considered in the design. We wanted a building with a shared inner courtyard, mainly for the use of the residents.
The balconies were very popular with the Bauhaus students. How do the residents of Waltrovka use their balconies?
OC: Balconies are often really tiny, and then all you can do is to use them for storing things that you no longer have any use for. Our balconies, however, are large enough to fit a large dining table. They are places where the whole family can really spend time together and so they significantly increase the living space of the flats.
MK: What’s more, they allow interesting interaction between the inhabitants, although admittedly we did use perforated metal panels to screen them from direct view and maintain a certain degree of privacy.
How much attention was paid to the Bauhaus during your studies in Brno?
MK: The Bauhaus was the proverbial thread that ran through the whole course. However, it was not treated as the only approach. Rather, the Bauhaus was seen as a heritage that you can build upon. And frankly, even if it’s true that it has influenced us, I don’t believe that influence was as strong on us as it was on previous generations of architects.
Brno is home to the Villa Tugendhat, by Mies van der Rohe. It was completed in 1930, the year in which Mies was offered a position at the Bauhaus. The building has been open to the public again since 2012. Since you live in the same city: Do you have any special experiences or memories associated with this building?
MK: The Villa Tugendhat is an important masterpiece – and not only for Brno. To a certain extent, it has influenced generations of architects all over the world. It is no exaggeration to say that it’s a “must” for architects to be able to draw the floor plan of this villa from memory.
OC: It should also be mentioned that the villa’s history is quite complicated. The Tugendhat family lived there for only a few years. They were influential Jewish factory owners who had to leave Brno shortly before the Second World War. The villa was used by Nazi officials during the war; afterwards it accommodated first a private ballet school and then a physiotherapy centre. My grandparents told me that it was a place where they had danced after the war.
MK: The villa also played an important part in the history of modern Czechoslovakia. It was in the villa’s garden that the Prime Ministers [of the nation's two halves] met in 1993 to sign an agreement on how the country should be divided. Ever since undergoing a thorough and successful restoration programme, the villa has been open to the public once again. In addition, a large number of cultural and social events are held here, and we can only say that we have many pleasant memories of these events. We are very glad that we can use the villa again, despite the fact that it originally had a different purpose. We believe the social functions that it now performs do justice to what the villa stands for. Every visit to the villa brings it closer to my heart and it undoubtedly influences how I think as an architect.
The Bauhaus is often seen as sober, rational, purist, reductionist, et cetera. At the same time, however, the Bauhaus had a very experimental character, especially in its early stages. What do you think about that – how important are innovation and the willingness to experiment, and how important is rationalism to you?
OC: Both are important. We believe that one way of defining architecture is as a combination of both. It is our ambition to try out innovative solutions and applications in a sensible and economical way.
MK: For example: for the showroom of a company that manufactures chairs, we clad the facade with their own chairs.
OC: Another interesting example is our recycling centre. Apart from being a place where waste is disposed of, this recycling centre is also a gallery that teaches its visitors about all the aspects and processes of waste disposal.
Laszlo Moholy-Nagy once described Karel Teige as the Czech Apollinaire, crediting him with “grasping new insights into connections, creating new connections, and furthermore [being] one of the best-informed men in Europe” [1]. So it’s no wonder that Karel Teige was a visiting professor at Dessau in 1929–30, where he gave a course on contemporary literature and typography. Later, he wrote about his experiences at the Bauhaus in one of his own texts [2]: “Today more than two hundred students from many different countries work here. There is no intention of introducing a regressive quota system; rather, the Bauhaus strives to attract the highest possible number of foreign students. One-third of the student body (including seven from Czechoslovakia) are foreigners. The Bauhaus has become a real Babylon and cosmopolis.” [3]
