A year ago, the architect of 'Ještěd' Karel Hubáček passed away

Prague - Architect Karel Hubáček, who passed away a year ago on November 23, was the author of the mountain hotel with a television transmitter on Ještěd, the most significant Czech building of the 20th century. The visionary architect was one of the key figures of Czech architecture in the second half of the 20th century and was among the founders of the famous Sial studio, which produced a number of outstanding Czech architects.
    Hubáček, who was born on February 23, 1924, in Prague, had a number of other buildings to his name, but his name will remain primarily associated with the Ještěd transmitter. Its elegant conical shape, resembling a rocket and whose silhouette can even be found in Czech illustrations of the stories about Neználka, earned Hubáček the prestigious Auguste Perret Prize in 1969.
    Other notable projects by Hubáček include the bank on Frýdlantská Street in Liberec, the interior of the Naivní divadlo (Naive Theatre) on Moscow Street, the town cinema in Doksy, and the cultural house with a concert hall in Teplice. Hubáček's traces can also be found in Prague (the waterworks compensating tower in Dívčí hrady or the meteorological tower in Libuš), and even in Aden, Yemen, where he designed another transmitter together with Dalibor Vokáč and Zdeněk Patrman. Hubáček's department store Ještěd in Liberec, completed in 1979, had less luck, surviving only three decades. The massive brown-yellow building was not well received by the public, and its fragmented interior design did not meet needs either.