The Liberec Region wants to buy the house of architect Hubáček, it will house a memorial
Liberec – The Liberec Region wants to purchase the house of Liberec architect Karel Hubáček for 12 million crowns, the author of the hotel and transmitter on Ještěd. The house, built as a prototype in the early 1960s, is to become the workplace of the North Bohemian Museum in Liberec and a memorial should be established there. The architect's sons offered the building to the region, and the regional council must still approve the purchase of the house in the lucrative villa district of Lidové sady on Tuesday, said Governor Martin Půta (Mayors for the Liberec Region) to reporters today.
Karel Hubáček would have celebrated his hundredth birthday next February. He studied architecture in Prague but is largely associated with Liberec, where he joined the then Stavoprojekt. In the late 1960s, he was among the founders of Sial, which managed to respond to modern European trends during the normalization period, giving rise to many figures in Czech architecture. He is credited with numerous buildings. For the Ještěd project, Hubáček received the prestigious Perret Award from the International Union of Architects in 1969 and is the only Czech architect to have received this honor so far.
"The North Bohemian Museum has long sought to acquire some items from the estate of Mr. Architect Hubáček, and this year in early September we received an offer from his family to acquire not only those awards and other items but also the house of Karel Hubáček as another museum exhibit. After several weeks of negotiations, we decided to accept the offer. We would like the house as well as the other items to commemorate the work of Mr. Architect and his legacy for the future," said Půta.
The house in Lidové sady, where the architect spent a significant part of his life, was one of his first projects. He designed it in the 1950s when individual housing was considered a bourgeois relic. "Karel Hubáček, as was his custom, went against the ideology and wanted to prove that a house could be built at the cost of a panel apartment and he wanted to showcase it at the Liberec Exhibition Fairs," added Jiří Křížek, director of the North Bohemian Museum. The house was built as an experimental installation. "He did not design it for himself at all," he added.
The project was developed by Karel Hubáček with Vlastimil Šedý, Josef Patrman, and Václav Bůžek, and served as a prototype for a planned but unrealized larger project for variable housing. According to the National Heritage Institute (NPÚ), several alternatives combining different mass, height, and layout solutions, including duplex houses, were developed. However, it remained just a prototype. According to the architect’s son Ivan Hubáček, it has been preserved in its authentic form, with no major changes except for insulation of the lower part.
The house currently has no heritage protection. "The Liberec National Heritage Institute is assisting in the preparation of a construction-historical survey, after which we need to determine its construction-technical condition. Since it is an experiment, materials were used here that have not been used anywhere else. The house is not in a dilapidated state but needs some care and maintenance. My vision is that once it is repaired, it can be declared a cultural monument," said Křížek, who would like to open the house to the public in the future. He could not estimate when that would be today.
Karel Hubáček would have celebrated his hundredth birthday next February. He studied architecture in Prague but is largely associated with Liberec, where he joined the then Stavoprojekt. In the late 1960s, he was among the founders of Sial, which managed to respond to modern European trends during the normalization period, giving rise to many figures in Czech architecture. He is credited with numerous buildings. For the Ještěd project, Hubáček received the prestigious Perret Award from the International Union of Architects in 1969 and is the only Czech architect to have received this honor so far.
"The North Bohemian Museum has long sought to acquire some items from the estate of Mr. Architect Hubáček, and this year in early September we received an offer from his family to acquire not only those awards and other items but also the house of Karel Hubáček as another museum exhibit. After several weeks of negotiations, we decided to accept the offer. We would like the house as well as the other items to commemorate the work of Mr. Architect and his legacy for the future," said Půta.
The house in Lidové sady, where the architect spent a significant part of his life, was one of his first projects. He designed it in the 1950s when individual housing was considered a bourgeois relic. "Karel Hubáček, as was his custom, went against the ideology and wanted to prove that a house could be built at the cost of a panel apartment and he wanted to showcase it at the Liberec Exhibition Fairs," added Jiří Křížek, director of the North Bohemian Museum. The house was built as an experimental installation. "He did not design it for himself at all," he added.
The project was developed by Karel Hubáček with Vlastimil Šedý, Josef Patrman, and Václav Bůžek, and served as a prototype for a planned but unrealized larger project for variable housing. According to the National Heritage Institute (NPÚ), several alternatives combining different mass, height, and layout solutions, including duplex houses, were developed. However, it remained just a prototype. According to the architect’s son Ivan Hubáček, it has been preserved in its authentic form, with no major changes except for insulation of the lower part.
The house currently has no heritage protection. "The Liberec National Heritage Institute is assisting in the preparation of a construction-historical survey, after which we need to determine its construction-technical condition. Since it is an experiment, materials were used here that have not been used anywhere else. The house is not in a dilapidated state but needs some care and maintenance. My vision is that once it is repaired, it can be declared a cultural monument," said Křížek, who would like to open the house to the public in the future. He could not estimate when that would be today.
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