Otto Rothmayer helped Plečnik to change Prague Castle

Prague – The most prominent work of architect Otto Rothmayer, who was born 120 years ago, on February 28, 1892, in Prague, was the modifications to Prague Castle, in which he participated as the closest collaborator of Josip Plečnik between the wars. It was Rothmayer who, as Plečnik's assistant, brought to life the designs that Plečnik created in Ljubljana. Later, he also designed his own modifications to the presidential residence, where he worked until the mid-1950s, and after the war, he also taught at the University of Applied Arts. In 1928 and 1929, he also built his own villa in Prague's Střešovice, which has now been transformed into a museum exhibition.

Rothmayer's father owned a carpentry business in Prague, and his only son originally trained in this craft before he enrolled at UMPRUM in 1912. There, he studied under Josip Plečnik, and when his teacher accepted the task of modifying Prague Castle for T. G. Masaryk in 1920, the then twenty-eight-year-old Rothmayer became the architect's assistant. However, after a few months, Plečnik received an offer to teach in his native Ljubljana, so he oversaw the reconstruction from a distance, leaving the main responsibility with his assistant. Rothmayer supervised the production of models of all details created according to Plečnik's sketches and monitored the execution of the work.

And when Plečnik, who came to Prague to check his designs over the summer, finished at Prague Castle, Rothmayer remained. In the 1930s, he designed some modifications himself, including the reconstruction of the south wing of the first courtyard into an apartment for state visitors and the alterations to the Theresian wing; in the western wing, one of the monumental halls, now known as Rothmayer's Hall, was created at the turn of the 1940s and 50s. However, after February 1948, the architect's work at Prague Castle was coming to an end; for political reasons, he also left his teaching position at UMPRUM and retired.

In the last ten years of his life (he died on September 24, 1966, in Prague at the age of 74), the architect, who also contributed to the interior design of the Church of the Sacred Heart of Jesus at Jiří z Poděbrady Square, focused on smaller commissions. He created exhibitions for the Museum of Applied Arts and a permanent exhibition at the Glass and Costume Jewelry Museum in Jablonec nad Nisou. He also continued to enhance his villa, particularly its garden, which was captured by Rothmayer's friend, photographer Josef Sudek, in his series "A Walk in the Enchanted Garden." The house, located next to the Prague Military Hospital, remained in the family's ownership until 2007, when it was purchased by the capital city, which turned the villa into a unique architectural exhibition.