Petr Kratochvíl: On the Work of Karel Hubáček

Architect Karel Hubáček is an extraordinary figure in 20th-century Czech architecture. His body of work is not extensive in terms of the number of realizations, but in the significance that his buildings have in the history of Czech architecture, with at least two of them also holding international importance. The Auguste Perret Prize, awarded to him by the International Union of Architects in 1969 for the design of the television transmitter at Ještěd, and the Grand Prix at the Interarch Biennale in Sofia in 1989 for the Cultural Center in Teplice, are evidence that, even in a time when domestic architecture was not favored, he managed to create works that evoke admiration abroad. Karel Hubáček was born on February 23, 1924, in Prague. He studied at the Faculty of Architecture and Civil Engineering at Czech Technical University in Prague (1945-49), where his teachers included Oldřich Starý, Josef Kittrich, Karel Honzík, Antonín Černý, and Antonín Ausobský. However, his professional career is associated with Liberec, where he started working at the then Stavoprojekt in 1951 and where he still resides today. Among a number of early projects for manufacturing plants, atypical schools, residential complexes, and other buildings, the cinema in Doksy (1957-63), designed with Vlastislav Kolář and František Dvořák, stands out. The unconventional shape partly resulted from the static solution (Štěpán Ješ) of the structure, which rises from the slope above a former pond. The elegant counter-movement of the curve of the upper floor and the angled facade also reveal an aesthetic motivation from one of the currents of the period's return to modern architecture after EXPO 58: a current linking structural logic and organic shaping. After all, this synthesis reappears multiple times in Hubáček’s work. Around the same time, he also designed a prefabricated family house (1959-60), which was intended to demonstrate that an individual residential house could be built for the same cost as an apartment in a panel building using prefabricated parts. The object was part of one of the exhibitions of the Liberec Exhibition Markets, to which Hubáček’s studio contributed annually (1958-65). However, it did not become a prototype, as the author intended, but later became his own home, and although the slender steel columns initially raised doubts, they still serve today with only minor modifications to the façade. The fame of Hubáček’s architecture is, of course, primarily associated with the construction of the Ještěd transmitter, which he designed after the fire of the old mountain lodge in 1963, in collaboration with engineers Zdeněk Zachař and Zdeněk Patrman and interior designer Otakar Binar. Today, it seems entirely understandable that in the then-internal competition of the Liberec Stavoprojekt, the jury chose precisely Karel Hubáček's project, despite the fact that it did not correspond to the original idea of two separate objects and combined the operations of the television transmitter, a hotel, and a restaurant into a single volume. As noted by his opponent and long-time student and collaborator Mirko Baum during Hubáček's delayed habilitation in 1995: “The beautiful symbiosis of architectural form with the constructive logic of the rotational hyperboloid is one of those simple and beautiful obviousnesses, where we don't even think that it could be otherwise.” Nevertheless, during the long construction period, the project not only provoked resistance among lovers of traditional mountain buildings but also caused embarrassment within professional circles. “Some architects argued again that the entire appearance of the object actually falls outside the category of architecture and becomes some kind of apparatus, that its author works more as an industrial designer than as an architect,” wrote Vítězslav Procházka in the contemporary press (Architecture of Czechoslovakia, 1968), wisely defending the building by stating that it encourages us to expand our notions of architecture to include entirely new forms and not to impoverish it of new possibilities. Ještěd truly was such a breakthrough to a new architecture, wholly comparable to what was happening to the west of our borders, often only represented as drawn futuristic visions. But the fascination with construction possibilities was not self-serving or demonstratively flaunted here. The building of Ještěd excels with original technical solutions that purposefully responded to the extreme weather conditions of the site as well as the specific requirements of broadcasting devices. Its elegant aerodynamic shape, smoothly merging into the silhouette of the mountain peak, was also a sensitive response to the character of the landscape. As a new dominant feature of the region, the building soon became its symbol. It also served as a beacon that attracted young promising architects to Liberec, for whom Karel Hubáček, along with his colleague Miroslav Masák, established the so-called SIAL School in Jedlová - “a tent where everyone hid... an umbrella against social and political discomfort,” as he later recalled (Architect, 1996). Hubáček's close collaboration with outstanding engineers was crucial for the work of the entire SIAL studio, which he founded in 1969 along with other architects and led himself. (After its dissolution and reintegration into Stavoprojekt in the 1970s, it was revived in 1990, briefly back under his leadership.) Hubáček's other transmitters, which he built in Sudan and Yemen in the 1970s, as well as the balancing water tower in Prague at Dívčí hrady (1972-77) and the meteorological tower in Prague-Libuš (1973-79, both with Zdeněk Patrman), were also architecturally inventive. Despite this focus on utility technical buildings, Hubáček’s work is not technocratically oriented.
Even during the construction of Ještěd, he almost simultaneously designed two (unrealized) buildings as different as the administrative building of Strojintex (1967, with Václav Voda) and the restaurant Orchidea (1966, with Josef Patrman and Václav Bůžek), which illustrate the diversity of his architectural positions. While in Strojintex, the basic structural idea - placing load-bearing supports in the axes of the façade - is utilized as a formative element, the restaurant Orchidea, intended as part of an expansion of the botanical garden, was rather a romantic melding with natural elements: the restaurant's interior was to feature an orchid greenhouse dominated by a glass tower, and the masonry incorporated natural stone. Even his design for a chapel for the Norwegian Storsand, with which he joined one of the exercises of the School, did not resemble the "machine-building" constructions that his young colleagues were already proposing at that time, but rather the form of an organic shape again. Nevertheless, the 1970s of his studio - at least regarding realizations - are marked by the mentioned technical devices elevated to architecture. This allowed Hubáček’s studio to survive economically and also provided an opportunity to verify newly developed materials and technologies (often patented by the studio itself), thus directing the work of especially younger members toward a current described as machinism.
The second peak of Hubáček’s own work must, however, be considered the realization of a differently focused project: the Cultural Center with Concert Hall in Teplice (1977-86, colonnade by Otakar Binar), an intentionally simply appearing building, drawing especially in the design of its interior from the requirements for acoustics. The form of the interior spaces is also reflected in the external rounding of the building's silhouette. His last realization also serves a cultural purpose - the completion and reconstruction of the DISK theater (1996-99, with Jiří Hakulín) for the Prague Theatre Faculty of AMU, for which he had already designed an experimental stage in Jižní Město in the early 1980s. The realized insertion of the theater stage of DISK into the courtyard of an older building on Karlova Street again exemplifies a masterful grasp of functional requirements crowned with an original roof shape that can also serve as an outdoor stage. It is remarkable how many cultural and especially theatrical facilities the architect designed, whose studio is associated with the most significant manifestations of technologically inspired architecture. In addition to those already mentioned, we should add the interiors of the Naivní divadlo in Liberec (1967-69), the reconstruction and completion of the Small Stage of the F.X. Šalda Theater (1986-89, respectively 1990-93), and his contribution to the completion of the Gusa na provázku theater in Brno (1985-93, main author Václav Králíček). His personal relationship with the arts was, after all, reflected in his intensive collaboration with artists, whom he unfailingly chose since the time of Ještěd to complete his interiors. Hubáček’s merits also include numerous realizations where he acted as a collaborator with his colleagues - as on the project of the Ještěd shopping center in Liberec (1968-71, main author Miroslav Masák) - or, simply by encouragement, openness, and defense of the results of others, he shaped the creative atmosphere of his studio and helped to promote the work of his colleagues. Karel Hubáček, a man of sparkling spirit and broad cultural outlook, always excelled in the inventiveness of his designs and inflexibility in advocating for true architecture despite the political and economic malaise of the time. Thanks to this, the work of the SIAL studio resonated beyond Czech borders and was one of the few that was frequently published in prestigious foreign magazines during the 1970s and 80s. His personal renown, along with the example of Ještěd, attracted many young architects to him in Liberec, for whom he provided an exceptionally free and inspiring environment in his studio. At the SIAL School, together with Miroslav Masák, he educated several generations of architects who later significantly influenced the development of Czech architecture or established themselves abroad. He continued his educational influence even after 1989 at the newly founded Faculty of Architecture in Liberec. For his work, Karel Hubáček received - in addition to the aforementioned awards - the award from the Union of Architects for his lifetime achievement, the Herder Prize, an honorary doctorate from Czech Technical University, and a commendation from the Czech Chamber of Architects. It is certainly also an honor that the building at Ještěd was declared the Czech building of the 20th century in several polls and was declared a national cultural monument in 2005.