Hugo Zaorálek Villa
In the years 1932-33, Žák built a house for Hugo Zaorálek in Prague's Baba district. Baba was a settlement that stretched along the streets Nad Paťankou, Na ostrohu, Na Babě, Jarní, and in Průhledová. The settlement of very modern villas was created as a counterpoint to the villa district of Ořechovka, which Ladislav Žák speaks of very pejoratively ("hideous villa on Ořechovka" - though he does not mean Loos's villa).
Thanks primarily to Pavel Janák, a Prague architectural authority who held this position even officially at the city hall, Baba came into being. Janák personally selected the architects - he invited members of his generation (e.g., Gočár) as well as younger architects (such as Žák, Evžen Linhart, or architect Hana Kučerová-Záveská).
Žák designed the villa again with a horizontal layout - only this seemed suitable to him for an architecture that was meant to fit into its surroundings and blend with the natural environment. He used paired strip windows on both floors, whose lines transition into terraces. The entrance is designed very simply, almost intimately - the single-leaf doors are sheltered by a simple portico and are approached by several almost uncomfortable steps. However, the strictness disappears at the opposite entrance to the garden, which generously passes through a spacious veranda into the outdoor space.
After Hugo Zaorálek's emigration in 1968, a new owner, a communist official, took radical measures to remodel the house and bricked up all the terraces. However, for example, the villa of writer Václav Řezáč was destroyed even more during this time, leaving only the perimeter skeleton.
The Baba settlement not only showcases one of Žák's masterpieces, but also represents a perfectly unified urban entity and recalls a time when architects breathed as one; their goal was, after all, architecture.
Thanks primarily to Pavel Janák, a Prague architectural authority who held this position even officially at the city hall, Baba came into being. Janák personally selected the architects - he invited members of his generation (e.g., Gočár) as well as younger architects (such as Žák, Evžen Linhart, or architect Hana Kučerová-Záveská).
Žák designed the villa again with a horizontal layout - only this seemed suitable to him for an architecture that was meant to fit into its surroundings and blend with the natural environment. He used paired strip windows on both floors, whose lines transition into terraces. The entrance is designed very simply, almost intimately - the single-leaf doors are sheltered by a simple portico and are approached by several almost uncomfortable steps. However, the strictness disappears at the opposite entrance to the garden, which generously passes through a spacious veranda into the outdoor space.
After Hugo Zaorálek's emigration in 1968, a new owner, a communist official, took radical measures to remodel the house and bricked up all the terraces. However, for example, the villa of writer Václav Řezáč was destroyed even more during this time, leaving only the perimeter skeleton.
The Baba settlement not only showcases one of Žák's masterpieces, but also represents a perfectly unified urban entity and recalls a time when architects breathed as one; their goal was, after all, architecture.
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