In Trmal's villa, there is a new exhibition featuring furniture by Jan Kotěra

Prague - Today, a new exhibition dedicated to its author, architect Jan Kotěra, was opened in the Trmal Villa in Prague. It is called Kotěra - Teacher of Living and focuses on the villa, interior, and furniture creations of the renowned creator. The furniture collection was loaned to the exhibition by the Museum of Decorative Arts in Prague, whose main building is undergoing reconstruction.
    The exhibition is composed of a selection of examples of furniture pieces made for specific clients, complemented by period photographs on textile scrolls. Among the exhibits are pieces of furniture from Peterka's house in Wenceslas Square, from the apartment of art history professor Karel Boromejský Mádlo, and others. The exhibition curator is Daniela Karasová from the Museum of Decorative Arts.
    The second part of the exhibition introduces villas, family houses, and colonies of official, workers', and employee homes designed by Jan Kotěra in the first two decades of the 20th century for the families of industrialist Tomáš Baťa, teacher František Trmal, or for the families of workers from the Králové Dvory ironworks.
    For Trmal, Kotěra built a villa in Strašnice in 1903. It is the first of his family house projects in Prague; among the villas he designed in the early 20th century are also the Fröhlich Villa in Černošice, Mách's Villa in Bechyně, and the Suchard Villa with an studio in Prague. Trmal's villa is built in the spirit of English modernism, but it also incorporates elements of Czech folk architecture. Today, the building houses the Jan Kotěra Museum, operated by the Foibos agency. The house belongs to Prague 10.
    Jan Kotěra (1871 to 1923), a native of Brno, graduated from the studio of the prominent Austrian architect Otto Wagner in Vienna and came to Prague in 1898. From the beginning, he aimed for his buildings to be primarily functional, combating the excessive decorative elements of the historicist architecture of the time. As a university educator, he trained a number of Czech architects from the first half of the 20th century - such as Bohuslav Fuchs, Josef Gočár, Otakar Novotný, and Kamil Roškot.