In Pilsen, Semler's residence designed by architect Loose will reopen after renovation

Plzeň - After an extensive reconstruction, the Semler Residence, which is the most significant and extensive housing realization in Plzeň according to architect Adolf Loos's concept, will be opened for tours on September 23. The building of Oskar and Jana Semler at Klatovská Street 110, with the interior of their apartment from 1933 to 1934, is among the prominent monuments of modern architecture in Central Europe. Alongside the Müller Villa in Prague and the Tugendhat Villa in Brno, it belongs to a trio of comparably valuable interiors, but it currently has significantly lower popularity, said architect and exhibition author Petr Domanický from the West Bohemian Gallery (ZČG) in Plzeň, which operates the residence.

The repairs were conducted in phases over nearly ten years. It cost 110 million crowns, of which 30 million were EU grants and 80 million from the budget of the Plzeň Region, said governor Rudolf Špoták (Pirates). The Plzeň Region acquired the entire building from the city in 2012 and handed it over to the ZČG for administration. The last phase of the reconstruction began in 2019. Almost the entire structure was restored, with the majority of the preserved furnishings undergoing restoration by dozens of restorers, and details that did not survive in the original were also renewed. "It is estimated that over 80 percent of the installed furniture, wall cladding, built-in furniture, is original, the rest has been supplemented in the form of replicas," said Domanický. The most challenging was the restoration of the octagonal dining room, where restorers had to disassemble the damaged mahogany cladding, skillfully restore it, align the deformed boards, and reinstall them.

According to Domanický, the extraordinary value of the interior lies primarily in Loos's original concept of the so-called Raumplan. The basic idea of the arrangement was likely sketched by Loos in 1932, the year before he died. The detailed project was prepared by his student Heinrich Kulka. "The most essential and valuable aspect is the entire spatial concept, the typical Loos Raumplan. This means a multi-level apartment that lacks traditional floors but has rooms of varying heights that complement each other and connect through stair steps, intertwining into an organism that can function as a whole, as one expansive living space," described Domanický. Due to the complex concept, it is difficult to calculate the floor area or the number of rooms. It is said that there are 40 rooms. The apartment is divided into six overlapping levels. "If we wanted, we could also find additional subordinate levels in the service area," noted Domanický.

The value is also in the materials used - rare woods, metals, and stones. "Perhaps the most beautiful room is the dining room, which has mahogany cladding and a floor made of lemon tree wood; the living hall, which has cladding made of northern birch and a floor of Makassar ebony, which is very rare wood, is also unique," said Domanický. During the reconstruction, numerous partitions and built-ins had to be removed. In previous decades, the residence housed, among other things, four apartments. Consequently, what was once a resting nook in the main hall became a shower cubicle lined with modern tiles and ceramics. The reconstruction returned wooden cladding and a backlit onyx wall to that area. "The entire corner was created as a replica. It is made in such a way that the original and new cladding of northern birch connect so well that nearly no one can tell there is a 90-year difference between them," said Domanický.

The building is divided into two parts - besides the wing of the house with the residence, there is an information center, space for education and culture, and a depository for the ZČG's architecture collection in the other wing. The building will also house Café Semler and a research center for architectural research. It is necessary to purchase tickets in advance for the tours. About a dozen of Loos's interiors have been preserved in Plzeň. Thus, alongside Vienna, Plzeň has the largest and most valuable collection of Loos interiors. However, only the Semler Residence has the Raumplan in Plzeň.