Jaromír Krejcar: Jan Kotěra

Not long ago, not quite 25 years, the name of Jana Kotěra — which later became an eloquent slogan of modern architecture — emerged in the forum of Czech art, first as the name of the leader of a young artistic phalanx, which with the elan of victorious youth was felling and shattering the rotten idols of historicizing academicism, flinging wide open the dusty windows of school studios and tearing off theatrical costumes from models frozen in poses forecasting Libuš and gestures privileging kings, to eagerly throw herself on their nakedness steeped in the flood of sunlight. The fresh air and stream of sun joyfully shoved into the studios accustomed to gallery gloom, the palette of brown classicist sauces, anxiously dependent on museal templates, quickly gave way to a palette overflowing with a liberated spectrum of colors, and wide chisels buried themselves with sensual eagerness into the boulder of unmotivated nakedness. The joyful era of early Impressionism — who today, at Kotěra's death, would not remember it? The first exhibition "Manesa" — "Free Directions" — Rodin — a sharp series of artistic sensations, a line of names from our Impressionist avant-garde — this is the beautiful, excited time at the beginning of a new century, in the center of which stands Kotěra — initiator — organizer, a young man not yet 30 years old of noble soul and worldly outlook, but even more: a destined genius creator of later modern architecture.
Although his name is closely tied to the Impressionist generation, its struggle and victory, Kotěra's own work far surpasses its intentions. While the others among his artistic friends fulfilled their life's mission through completion and exhaustion of the program, Kotěra moves on. The initial enthusiasm and elan of youth ripens into manly age in a consciously programmatic work. The work, initially characterized by eruptive exuberance, increasingly aligns with life, ultimately merging in beautiful harmony with the rhythm of today.
If we can now look upon all those who formed in the early days of "Manesa" the cadre of Kotěra's comrades-in-arms and collaborators — even if they still lived — as an artistic yesterday, it can be said of Kotěra that he is today the most modernly feeling architect — whose work has analogies with related phenomena: F. L. Wright, P. Behrens, A. Perret, Corbusier-Saugnier and the modern Dutch group.
Kotěra's uncompromising, unyielding genius suffered from the smallness of our conditions, which did not allow him to develop in the full breadth of his possibilities. With rivalry and pettiness characteristic of provincial small-mindedness, unnecessary obstacles were constantly thrown in Kotěra's way, and overcoming them cost him much energy, which he could have devoted, under more favorable circumstances, to realizing his ideas and his own intensive work. As a result of these conditions, against which he had to fight throughout his life, which ultimately seek to thwart the greatest of his projects, the greatest Czech architect destined for monumental buildings, which for ages were to document a higher than European level of Czech modern construction, may have had fewer opportunities to build than any average construction entrepreneur.
If we compare Kotěra's work to contemporary modern architecture worldwide, it stands victorious against it. Kotěra has not yet received the world recognition enjoyed by F. L. Wright or Peter Behrens; not because it was necessary for him as a member of a small nation, but due to the jealousy of certain circles, which feel their injury in the greatness of another and due to misunderstanding of those who, instead of taking advantage of his work in building new representative buildings, sought to disable him even from what he personally achieved. Unfortunately, this is a very sad chapter in Kotěra's life — one that cannot be passed over in silence.
Even if there were a great work that Kotěra left behind, just a hint of what might have been created under more favorable conditions, it will remain for a long time a safe lighthouse, clearly showing the way to all who will continue to work in the modern, clearly expressed intentions by him.
However, with Kotěra there departed a great, almost heroic personal initiative, which Kotěra as a teacher uniquely managed to guide his students onto safe paths and to concentrate their interest on the focal point of all premises — contemporary life. Although after his death his own work was appreciated everywhere, it was not sufficiently emphasized that his work also includes all modern Czech architecture, which received its impulse from him, the foundations of which are so closely tied to life that their clear immediacy quickly made them forget their individual origin. But we must never forget that these principles of modern construction, which are today common opinion, were first expressed in our country by Kotěra.
An honest friend of youth, Kotěra managed as a teacher to always enjoy its exuberance, the fantasy yet untamed by life, and let it completely freely unleash itself in abstract compositions often composed on various poetic themes, until gradually shifting the interest to solving concrete tasks. Allowing his students complete freedom in developing their individuality, he only aimed to establish a positive relationship with the life for which they would later create. Having achieved this, he felt his mission as a teacher to be fulfilled and asked only that his student use their abilities as a practical worker in life.
Did he teach? No. He educated. He educated primarily a modern person. In this lies the secret of his school and its vitality, that it was never a factory for epigones, whether voluntary or forced, like other contemporary schools, but rather a joyful workplace for several young people, in which Kotěra set the tone, not as a professor, but as the ideological leader of a young group.
The very environment in which the school was located corresponded to its nature. The villa situated on the hillside of fresh gardens is one of those architectures of Kotěra’s in which the basic trait of his character is entirely reflected, the fine taste of a distinguished gentleman combined with a powerful creative force, a constant source of his youthful spontaneous vitality. The school in this villa was a lively contrast to the gloomy academic lecture halls, in which every corner screams with official coldness and the inventory list of plaster scrap classical casts, monotonously imposed models of genuine guaranteed beauty, on which alone may the eye of the young student rest with pleasure.
And so, as Kotěra's school was little formally connected with the Academy of Fine Arts — so little was it connected with it in spirit. Perhaps only administrative matters, such as stamps, fees, etc., bound the architecture specialty officially to the academy. — The living positive aspect, the hallmark of Kotěra's human and artistic nature, also enabled the splendid trajectory of his artistic development. It allowed Kotěra to always penetrate directly to the roots of new problems. His positive and direct relationship to life is reflected in both his entire body of work and in the management of the school. He himself was a rare type of creator, in whose being there is evident a complete harmony of man with artist. "Personally, Kotěra embodied the type of gentleman," was very aptly written somewhere after his death, and this privilege penetrates few people and guides him even in his artistic activity. The healthy creative instinct of the modern person, with which he initially liberated construction from the application of dead, historical forms, continually led him closer to the essence of the matter, to new solutions of space with new technical means until he ultimately achieved in his buildings a complete asceticism of decorative forms, limiting himself to proportionate balancing of space, the rhythm of which he simply transferred to the exterior of the building. The elegance*) and clearly balanced simplicity characterizing the pinnacle of Kotěra’s work stems from the harmony of purpose and overall form, making their beauty analogously akin to the beauty of a perfect machine.
The chassis of an elegant car, standing in front of one of these buildings, corresponds with it in proportions, lines, purposeful use of materials, etc.; simply both are products of the same modern spirit, which transformed matter into new shapes, practically corresponding to new needs and aesthetically satisfying its sense of beauty, a form adhering to purpose. The street of the modern metropolis has a different rhythm of life than the street of Renaissance Florence or some baroque city — and this new rhythm of life was transcribed by Kotěra into his architecture.
The direct generous conception, the disposition logically proportionate to the life of the modern person, the delicate noble elegance from which the proportions of space are balanced, this entirely modern spirit, permeating Kotěra's buildings, causes that Kotěra's name today stands again in the shield of the youngest artistic generation, which, perceiving in contemporary surrounding striving for a new style of decorative forms the same lifelessness as that which years ago was manifested by the application of dead historical forms of Roman columns etc. on the facades of houses, sees in Kotěra’s work a pure product of modern architectural feeling and a powerful initiative for its work.
Behold — today's Kotěra, once the leader of the Impressionist avant-garde.
To appreciate the significance of the artist for the development of the time, and to precisely define the scope of his influence, a short time distance is not enough. A much longer distance is needed, providing us a comprehensive overview of the time, all ideological components, giving impetus to its actions. Only when a long distance of years allows us to see the past as a closed whole of thought and its realization, will there emerge in the schematic image of the historian the personalities whose name is veiled with some action significant for the time.
Therefore, the name of Jan Kotěra will forever remain associated with modern architecture of the first quarter of the twentieth century, with an era that will be for future historians the dawn of a new epoch in the history of architecture.

*) I use the word "elegance" intentionally in the common sense, as it expresses the modern ideal in contrast to the classic museum ideal of perfect "Beauty."