<Jitka Kubištová> : <Sial in Česká Lípa>

“The District National Committee in Česká Lípa is weak, it cannot resist us.”

Among the cities significantly affected by the projects of the Liberec association Sial in Northern Bohemia is Česká Lípa.1 The city fell within the area of interest of the Liberec Stavoprojekt, on whose ground Sial was formed in the 1960s. The relatively large number of contracts in the 1970s and 1980s was due to the unprecedented economic boom of Česká Lípa following the discovery of uranium deposits. Some works of Sial for this city have already been recorded and analyzed in art historical literature. This article provides an overall overview of them and adds further information about the circumstances of their origin as well as various aspects of their architectural and urbanistic solutions.

Pre-Sial. The 1950s and 1960s
After “Victorious” February 1948, Czechoslovakia reoriented itself to the political and economic program of Stalin’s Soviet Union. The workings of the state began to be governed according to the Soviet model through the nationwide introduction of five-year plans for the construction and reconstruction of the national economy. The five-year plans, based on central directive planning, did not take into account the actual needs of the market or the people.
In this new, totalitarian era, the city of Česká Lípa stood out as a significant center of communist power. The Česká Lípa district was to become a model for other territorial units in Northern Bohemia. The urban construction plan in the 1950s focused on the issue of housing. From the turn of the 1940s and 1950s, the concept of housing estates and standardized residential buildings in the style of socialist realism, known as “sorely,” began to dominate Czechoslovak architecture. Construction production gradually abandoned classical construction systems and concentrated on new "progressive and economically efficient" technologies. This led to revolutionary prefabricated systems. In 1948, the state established the Czechoslovak Construction Works, the Institute for Studies and Typification, and the national enterprise PA-100 Stavoprojekt. These formations were to ensure a unified approach to design and construction work, typification, prefabrication, and economization of construction, not just financially but also in terms of spatial efficiency. However, it would be a mistake to evaluate the urban units built then across different parts of the country in a blanket manner. In individual urban complexes, atypical locally colored deviations often manifested. Over time, the typology of apartment buildings developed and changed. For immediate housing, so-called “bare types” began to be built from the late 1940s, based on exterior and interior minimalism. Stavoprojekt Liberec designed such typical rental buildings on the main communication arteries at the boundaries of the city agglomeration of Česká Lípa.
Four housing units in a two-story T 13 type building on Jiřího z Poděbrad Street No. 1697 were constructed by Stavoprojekt Liberec between 1956-1957. The main architect of the workshop at the time was Augustin Šimůnek; the leading and responsible designer of this project became Jaromír Vacek.2 The construction of the residential building for the national enterprise RLI Liberec was financed by the Energotrust company in Česká Lípa.3 Together with a similar type of house on the adjacent Ruská Street, these buildings gently complement the older quarter. They were preceded by a stylistically similar duplex T 13/52 with twelve residential units on Hálková Street Nos. 1688 and 1689. Jaromír Vacek designed it in 1953 for the District National Committee in Česká Lípa.4
In the 1950s, Česká Lípa felt a significant shortage of public buildings. The prospective plan from 1957 included a request for the construction of an industrial school. However, due to financial reasons, the task remained unfulfilled, and thus the most prominent construction project of the 1950s remained the reconstruction and extension of the industrial school from the late 19th century at Havlíčkova Street No. 426 [1]. The design for it was prepared in 1953 by the State Design Institute (Stavoprojekt) Liberec. The lead designer at that time was twenty-nine-year-old architect Karel Hubáček5, and the responsible designer was one year younger Jaromír Vacek. The reconstruction of the industrial school, consisting of extending the side wings with new classrooms and workshops and adding a separate gymnasium building, was carried out by Pozemní stavby Liberec between 1954-1957.6 The added wings, covered with a ridge roof, respect the original two-story height of the school and its historicizing morphology. However, the prefabricated details acknowledged the modern construction methods of the time. Not long after the Česká Lípa experience, in 1960, Hubáček designed further school buildings in nearby Zákupy, Nový Bor, and Bakov nad Jizerou.7
After the gray provincialism and uniformity of domestic construction, there was a growing need in Czechoslovakia in the 1960s to build better and more modern architecture. Architects sought to forget the 1950s and wanted to establish a disrupted continuity with the successful period before the onset of Stalinism. During a time of political relaxation, personalities of considerable quality emerged. Besides the Machonins, Karel Prager, and Karel Filsak, I mention the group around Karel Hubáček at the Liberec branch of Stavoprojekt, which became independent as the architectural office Sial in 1968.
Unfortunately, these awakening cosmopolitan trends bypassed Česká Lípa. However, this does not mean that the District National Committee did not strive for the construction expansion of the city. At the dawn of the 1960s, there were 14,312 inhabitants living there. The original Master Urban Plan from 1950 by Rudolf Štych8 had already been surpassed not only in urban-technological terms but especially from the political-social standpoint. At the beginning of the new decade, in 1962, architect Vladimír Syrovátko9 from the Liberec Stavoprojekt developed a new Master Urban Plan for Česká Lípa. The reasons for the creation of Syrovátko's plan included compositional shortcomings in the city's construction and the insufficient capacity of public and residential buildings. For the basis of the spatial composition of the city and for the area of expansion of the residential zone of Česká Lípa, Syrovátko chose its northern part. In the commentary to the Master Urban Plan, he pointed out the insufficient architectural equipment of cultural and educational institutions, healthcare complexes, public dining and accommodation facilities, educational facilities, sports fields, and civic amenities.
For the construction of residential units of type T 0B, he designated areas in the municipal district of Slovanka.
Syrovátko opposed the construction of multi-story houses in the historical core. On the other hand, he emphasized the need to expand the natural belts of the city, even at the cost of violating the historical layout, especially in the area of the then Stalin's gardens. He also recommended the sanitation of the overly dense Česká Lípa housing, especially by opening the southern part of the main square. This would create corresponding green areas. Vegetation from the valley of the Ploučnice River would thus reach the very heart of the city. It happened. Between 1964 and 1970, houses on what was then Gottwald Street and in Sokolská Street, as well as buildings along the route from the square to Nový Bor, were demolished.10 The new Master Urban Plan also proposed relocating the north-south state highway I. class (Prague - Nový Bor) to the eastern edge of the city, while the east-west bypass should lead through the valley of the Ploučnice River, also bypassing the square. This was intended to calm the entire city center and free it for pedestrians. The architect's recommendation was also related to the commercial sector. He preferred to build a central shopping center in the city and then ensure the growth of a network of more specialized stores for a more convenient life for residents. The plan was approved in 1963.
Comprehensive construction of residential buildings was already developing at a dynamic pace throughout Czechoslovakia at the beginning of the 1960s. This also applies to Česká Lípa. Over ten years, the city expanded by the first panel housing estate Slovanka, bordered by villa construction in Kovářova and Heroutova, and Děčínská Street to the north. A detailed territorial plan for the second large housing estate Pod Holým vrchem was created in 1969. Today, buildings from both estates rise over the neighboring family houses in dizzying heights, up to twelve stories. In the first two post-war decades, brick houses, although standardized, were built in the territory of Česká Lípa as solitary structures scattered among older developments. The architecture and urbanism of panel housing estates followed a different principle. They arose on vacant lots outside the city, in green meadows seemingly created for modern idyllic socialist coexistence. Locations for them were designated by Syrovátko's Master Urban Plan from 1962. Thanks to the construction system of prefabricated panel walls, the city could rapidly address the housing shortage. Česká Lípa eagerly embraced this style of building for the long thirty years. The last high-rise panel houses were still being built here in the 1990s. The new type of these houses, whose production began in 1962 in our country, was a structurally improved type of the first Zlín panel houses series G. The tectonic system was based on a transverse load-bearing system, which meant that “in modular distances, transverse load-bearing walls of concrete panels are executed in the buildings, on which ceiling panels are laid perpendicular.”11 The T 06 B fully prefabricated panel houses, constructed from elements with a span of 360 cm, had a floor height of 280 cm, with a two-armed staircase with an intermediate landing and mostly a built-in elevator shaft.
The first tower fully prefabricated panel houses types T 06 B and T 08 B were built in the Slovanka housing estate [2] for 4,180 inhabitants between 1965-1967 in three phases of construction. The general designer was the Regional Design Institute Ústí nad Labem, Liberec Center, with the lead designer Pavel Švancer12 and the responsible designer Josef Hlavatý. They were built by Pozemní stavby Liberec, from investments by the North Bohemian Regional National Committee Ústí nad Labem. By the end of 1965, ten buildings with a total of 360 residential units were completed in the first phase.13
Along the new central communication road, Železničářská Street, four tower buildings were to rise as architectural dominants of the whole housing estate. During construction, the number of floors changed, from ten stories to twelve. Their type, Tanvald, contained five apartments on one floor. The total residential area of five apartments on the floor was 189.10 m2. The façade was characterized by a relief, aided by the use of loggias. The architects' intention was to create a height contrast with the lower regularly spaced four-story buildings. The oldest housing estate in Česká Lípa was critically evaluated by city architect Václav Šuk in the study assignment Concept of Ideological- Artistic Decoration of the City from 1983: “The Slovanka housing estate is expressionally indebted to the time of its origin in a city marginalized by the interests of higher authorities. It connects to the original peripheral development of single-family houses on the former northwestern edge of the city; it is a heterogeneous organism of low-rise and high-rise residential buildings. At present, the basic civic amenities are still being completed under the actions of Z. The strengths of the estate are the mature greenery, into which the health center was appropriately integrated.”14
The key task of the housing policy of the Česká Lípa district during the fifth five-year plan was the construction of the second large local housing estate Pod Holým vrchem (also Holý Vrch), on the land between the streets Na blatech, Ruskou, Jiřího z Poděbrad, Tylová, and Pod Holým vrchem. The housing estate, comparable in area to the Slovanka estate but architecturally more advanced, was created by Vladimír Syrovátko from the Liberec Stavoprojekt,15 built by Pozemní stavby Liberec. The architect built upon the already completed development of the Slovanka housing estate. The new complex was dominated by three thirteen-story tower buildings, the fourth introduced the entrance from the direction of Slovanka. At the base of these verticals, buildings of civic amenities were loosely grouped. The backbone of the spatial arrangement consisted of two blocks of seven-story houses following the terrain and oriented southwest-northeast. The remaining residential units were accommodated in four-story row houses distributed along the edges of the estate. The complex, predominantly constructed with the T 06 B system, ultimately absorbed 823 apartments.
Due to a desperate shortage of mixed goods shops in the Hrnčířské suburb, architect Jiří Svoboda16 from Stavoprojekt Liberec designed a self-service store on Mánesova Street [3] in the first quarter of 1960. The responsible designer noted Jarmila Beranová in the documentation, and the construction was to be undertaken by the District Investment Unit Liberec. Due to the damp substrate, the store was to be based on reinforced thresholds with longitudinal load-bearing walls and light steel beams, with a clearance of 12 m.17 The architect conceived the self-service store as a single-story building with an almost square floor plan. The wall structure was designed in a three-meter module. The building lacked display windows, but the fully glazed northwest wall would allow customers a view into the interior. The sales area was to cover an area of 210 m2 with a height of 300-460 cm and a visible ceiling with steel trusses.18 The cube of the self-service store would be slightly slanted towards the main entrance. The load-bearing walls would be recorded in both volume and color highlights (light red). Among the building materials, concrete, glass, wood, steel, plasterboard, and mosaic tiles would be employed. It is regrettable that Svoboda's atypical design was not realized, as its slopes and large-scale modern materials represented a new perspective on architecture.
The most valuable local contribution of the 1960s in the construction of educational institutions is found on Antonín Sova Street. At the top of the hill, there lie several typified buildings forming a complex of pavilion-style 18-class Primary School for nine years located in the Slovanka housing estate No. 1795. The idea to build a school here was voiced at the meeting of the City National Committee as early as 1963. A project that complied with the nationwide valid typified guidelines for pavilion schools from 1961 was subsequently born. Due to the low pupil count, however, it was not accepted into the manufacturing and investment plans for 1964, or the following years. For the period 1967-1969, a new project for 720 students was presented. In June 1966, it was prepared by the Liberec center of the Regional Project Institute of Ústí nad Labem, led by Václav Bůžek.19 The central investor was the North Bohemian Regional National Committee of Ústí nad Labem, the investor was the Regional Investment Institute of Ústí nad Labem, Liberec center, and the general contractor was Pozemní stavby Liberec-STAS Česká Lípa. The school complex was to consist of a two-story classroom building for 1st-5th grades, a sports building, a classroom building for 6th-9th grades with workshops, a dining facility, an out-of-school educational facility, a sports playground, a playground for 1st-5th grades, a summer meeting area, a water reservoir, experimental school beds, and a shed for gardening tools, constructed between 1967-1969. It was created by typified pavilions U2, SD2, T1, SMV3, and a modified pavilion MV2 according to the new type for elementary schools approved by the Ministry of Education and Culture on March 31, 1965. The pavilions are interconnected by covered glazed corridors. The author of the last pavilion SMV3 from 1971 was architect Pavel Švancer, the general designer of the Slovanka housing estate.20
Architecturally, the school is conceived very simply and clearly. Its strength lies in the connecting covered walkways linked to the outdoor space with large-format glass. Transparent corridors, the glass brick-covered gym, a dense row of three-part windows of classroom pavilions, and the glazed infill of the side staircase all present not only the typological variety of the contemporary offering of construction elements but also an effort for a refined appearance of otherwise uniform buildings.

The Work of Sial in Česká Lípa. The 1970s and 1980s
The 1970s, the period of the fifth and sixth five-year plans, represented a golden era for construction and industrial productivity in Česká Lípa. At that time, the plan for the construction of all housing estates in Česká Lípa was completed. Parallel to the completion of Slovanka, housing estates Holý Vrch, Kopeček, Střed I and II, Střelnice, and Sever were created, and the construction of the Špičák housing estate began. Alongside panel complexes, more intimate private forms of housing, family row houses, and solitary buildings scattered across different parts of the city also moved to the forefront.
In the 1970s, Česká Lípa stood out as one of the most significant centers of uranium industry in our country. Uranium mining had begun in the Česká Lípa region in 1966, but only in the following decade did its significance rise with the related job offers. By 1975, the population had soared close to twenty thousand. Thanks to the uranium phenomenon, the planning department of the city national committee's concepts swelled into oversized, almost utopian constructs of communist functionaries or rather visionaries. At the end of 1974, the District National Committee prepared an important document, the Conception for the Development of the City of Česká Lípa. A year later, it was approved by the council of the North Bohemian Regional National Committee.21 Alongside Mostecko, Ústecko, and Chomutovsko, the Česká Lípa region emerged as one of the areas of the North Bohemian region that took precedence over others in five-year plans for investment construction.
In 1974, Česká Lípa was established as the settlement center of the uranium industry in the North Bohemian area. Since that date, examinations and analyses of the then-current state of the city and its surroundings began. These probes were then used in compiling a new territorial plan. After the approval of territorial and economic principles for its elaboration in 1977, designers from the urban planning center of Stavoprojekt Liberec began working on new territorial solutions for the settlement entity Česká Lípa, again under the leadership of Vladimír Syrovátko. Two years later, Syrovátko submitted his Master Territorial Plan.22 Numerous discrepancies and objections concerning the distribution of certain urban functions or civic amenities, however, postponed the deadline for the final completion of the plan to 1983.23
The focus of the central zone of the city naturally became the historic core. Syrovátko’s work dedicated special attention to it. He contemplated the suitability of new construction on its territory as well as the possibilities for renovating existing structures, both from architectural and urbanistic perspectives. An inner transport ring had to be constructed around the city monument zone, which would also delineate the extent of pedestrian zones with reduced motor traffic. Higher civic amenities were moved away from the historic core, but kept within its reach, along the Ploučnice River near Děčínská Street. The plan won first place in the category of urban planning in a competition announced by the Federal Ministry of Technical and Investment Development in collaboration with the Ministry of Construction of the Czechoslovak Republic and the Union of Architects in 1985.24 Alongside it, Terplan Praha was working on a plan for the large territorial unit of the Česká Lípa region. Thus, within two decades, Česká Lípa stood out as a city of significant investments. During this relatively short period, it doubled its area.
A new perspective on architectural creation helped people in Česká Lípa uncover the first city architect, Václav Šuk. Until then, as Šuk writes in his dissertation from 1985, “Česká Lípa had a distinctly negative view of architects and their work.”25 The architect was the main initiator of the establishment of the Department for the Conception and Coordination of Urban Development of the City of Česká Lípa. Starting from 1978, this institution independently conducted territorial preparation and architectural service in the city and neighboring villages. In the 1983 article Český Lípa Nástup, Šuk described the cooperation of the Department with the city national committee: “The leadership of the city national committee thus created its own independent working group for its needs, which would become an expert partner for project organizations producing documentation for the district city, and which would monitor the concept of its development and help coordinate and further develop the ideas of presented urban planning documentation.”26 Šuk's group had only an advisory function; the Construction Department exercised executive power. Šuk sought to establish contacts with the public through his educational activities. Architects’ plans of important buildings were exhibited by the Department members in information boards throughout the city. In the weekly Českolipský nástup, Šuk regularly contributed to the section Česká Lípa in architects' plans from 1979-1987, and articles on the current construction of the city were published in the years 1984-1990 in the monthly magazine Zpravodaj. Česká Lípa.
The uranium phenomenon and the related population increase necessitated rapid construction; therefore, Lípa did not hesitate to assign tasks even to architects who found themselves in disfavor with Husák’s regime after 1968. Fresh air of creative work from the Liberec studio began to flow into a city that did not seem too interesting architecturally until then.
Sial was founded in July 1968 by architects Karel Hubáček, Otakar Binar, Miroslav Masák, and economist Karel Plecitý. After the political liquidation of the studio in 1971, the association had to return to Stavoprojekt. In 1984, the head of the studio Karel Hubáček was succeeded by the generation-younger Jiří Suchomel, a former member of Sial's Workshop. The workshop, initially intended as an informal postgraduate institution, was established a year after Sial’s founding by Hubáček and Masák, the latter led it and also designed the transformation of its seat in Liberec-Radčice from an old inn Na Jedlové. Among the members of the Workshop were also the authors of significant projects for Česká Lípa, Dalibor Vokáč, Zdeněk Zavřel, Jiří Suchomel, and Emil Přikryl.
In 1970, a permit was issued for the construction of a primary school at Jižní Street No. 1903 for the Holý Vrch housing estate. In Stavoprojekt Liberec, it was designed by Vladimír Pavlů27 as the lead designer and Vladimír Syrovátko as the responsible designer, with the District National Committee in Česká Lípa as the investor. The school was constructed by Pozemní stavby Liberec, STAZ division in Česká Lípa.28 Initially, the school was supposed to have eighteen classes; however, upon the investor’s command, Pavlů reduced its capacity to thirteen. After handing over the completed school, the newspaper Českolipský nástup paradoxically reported a higher need for fifteen classes.29 The pavilion building contained classroom pavilions U1, U2, and U3, a physical education pavilion T, an extracurricular education pavilion MV with an after-school club, storerooms, and a dining hall, metalworking and woodworking shops, an entrance hall B3, changing rooms, and sanitary facilities, all interconnected by corridors B1 and B2.30 A new technology for basic nine-year schools, the construction system MS 71 České Budějovice notable for its non-connection joint prefabricated skeleton, was chosen for the construction. The school does not stand out for its artistic value, rather its uncovered atrium designated for relaxation, teaching, and other social activities does. The project for the atrium was completed by the authors of the school in 1975. The break yard, partly paved with white marble and complemented with greenery, water surfaces, and fountains, was separated by a ceramic artistically designed wall that divided students from the first and second degrees of the school.
The primary school on Jižní Street was designed by architects who worked in the Liberec Stavoprojekt but in different studios than Sial's founders. However, it is worth comparing their work with another building of the same type, whose design came directly from the hands of the members of Sial's Workshop. One of the first truly valuable buildings of the communist era came to Česká Lípa in 1973. At that time, the Liberec Stavoprojekt, specifically Hubáček's studio, which had already integrated into the Liberec giant, prepared the project for the construction of a nine-year thirty-four-class school for 900 students in the newly built Sever housing estate [4]. The author’s pair Zdeněk Zavřel-Dalibor Vokáč31 signed the project, and Jiří Svoboda became the responsible designer.32 The orderer and investor of the construction was the Uran Mines company, k. p. Hamr and the contractor was Pozemní stavby Liberec. The municipal construction department issued the construction permit on January 31, 1973. The school was constructed successively in several phases. The occupancy permit for the school area bears the date of March 1, 1984.33
The school site encompassed not only the school building itself but also numerous sports facilities – a twenty-five-meter pool, three gyms, a football field of 48 x 36 m with a running track, two volleyball courts with clay surfaces, and a handball court with an asphalt surface. It was meant not only for the pupils but also for the citizens of Česká Lípa. The basis for the project formed the mass configuration of four main blocks, one single-wing and three double-winged. The blocks were combined in the basic compositional whole into two large parts connected by a ground-floor entrance pavilion. The larger of the two parts could further be divided into a low two-story block D and a wider four-story classroom block A. These two combined objects created spacious terraces with their stepped height. In the consecutive smaller two-story block B, facing Přibramská Street, teaching was also conducted. Individual pavilions were unified by a central backbone axis, part of which was also the entrance pavilion C.
As with the primary school on Jižní in Holý Vrch, the MS 71 prefabricated skeleton system was employed here as well. Architects brought light into the interiors through glazed strips from the eastern and western sides. The austere and stark character of the school, based on an unconventional compositional scheme, was softened by metallic sunshade lamellas on the eastern façades. The bare gable walls of block A were accentuated with steel two-armed staircases. The western side offers an interesting view of the glass shell of the gym pavilion, carried to the extreme in the sense of a uniform glass surface. Only the bases of the buildings were occasionally adorned with a white ceramic cladding.34 The atypical prefabricated skeleton sharply penetrated the building’s interior. However, this artistic intention went unappreciated by the lay public. Local historian Ladislav Smejkal described the building as “a bit strange and unusual. In its first period, its interior gave the impression of a prison. It should be said that much has been done over time to make the spaces appear more pleasant.”35
Section A consisted of two mirror-facing wings with seven tracts. Three internal tracts served as a communication corridor and, when connected across all four levels, created a sort of atrium; the first and second floors functioned as terraces for this atrium [5]. A pair of reinforced concrete staircases ran through all levels in both wings. Obliquely placed skylights in the second floor allowed plenty of sunlight to enter the atrium, illuminating the entire central space. In an article published in 1983 in Českolipský nástup, Hana Zahradníčková positively commented on the classes and corridors, “that are full of light,” adding that it is “so far the most modern school building in our republic.”36
With the realization of the primary school Sever, the city of Česká Lípa slowly began to free itself from years of architectural insignificance and provincialism. Until then, the construction of the city was dominated by mass-produced standardized objects devoid of creative flair. With the endeavors of Zavřel and Vokáč, Česká Lípa truly touched what we associate with the concept of Sial. The forms of the school can even reflect the contemporary enchantment of its members with the high-tech style. Although the school does not belong to Zavřel's and Vokáč's foremost works, it still managed to elevate the level of Česká Lípa's architecture to a higher notch. It stands out with its balanced mass composition on uneven terrain, prominent steel components of robust shapes, exposed structural mechanisms, and a connection between the exterior and interior through transparent glass surfaces.
According to the local party moguls' vision, the building of the District Committee of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia should become a symbol of the expansion of Česká Lípa and its region,
No. 2077 [6]. The actual building, situated in a trapezoidal area between Arbesova, Pátá, and Děčínská streets, was officially designed by Stavoprojekt Liberec. The architect M. Strach created the site study. The “White House” [7], as the object was commonly referred to until recently,37 was designed between 1974-197538 by Sial founder Otakar Binar.39 The need for local dignitaries to build quickly thus led to this task being assigned to an architect who, along with other members of Sial, signed and published in August 1968 the famous protest against the Soviet occupation “A Call to Fellow Citizens” and was then unable to publish his work in the official press. Binar's project was executed by Pozemní stavby Liberec. The total cost of about 20 million Kčs was covered by the Regional Committee of the Communist Party. The construction period was set for 1976-1978, but the grand opening only took place on May 6, 1981.40 The multipurpose colossal building of the OV KSČ integrated into the monumental environment of the northwestern part of the city. It found itself next to the representative court building and opposite the newly built District Department of the Czech Statistical Office in Česká Lípa. To obtain the construction site, a family house from 1882 and the retaining walls obscuring the view into the courtyards of the county court prison from 1898 had to be demolished.
The “White House” contained three operational units: the administrative six-story building itself, a two-story two-winged social section, and a two-story three-winged House of Political Education. The height differentiation of the individual components adhered to the technology of monolithic reinforced concrete construction. The skeleton consisted of a transverse reinforced concrete frame system with infill masonry in the social section and the House of Political Education. In the administrative building, a longitudinal NOE formwork system with infill masonry was additionally added. The building was included in the extraordinary list ČPK - special buildings.41
The entrance to the administrative building, stepped in the third floor, was from Arbesova Street. The actual disposition derived from the requirements of the investor and the user. The basement housed storerooms, garages, and technical equipment. The ground floor contained an information center, a telephone room, meeting halls, waiting rooms, and changing rooms. The first to third floors belonged to the offices of the OV KSČ secretariat. The last floor housed two studios. A massive risalit for the staircase protruded from the rectangular monobloc at the rear. Other one-story components were attached to the building from the sides and courtyard: a large meeting hall for 200 people with an area of nearly 300 m2, a foyer, a small meeting hall, a buffet with classrooms, and a reading room and office building. The exterior was unified on three sides with white ceramic tiles. The ground floors of all buildings received a unified surface of reddish-brown tiles and large-format glass surfaces. The shell of the administrative building was stitched with a dense row of single-unit windows. The construction technology of the prefabricated skeleton matched the building of the District Committee of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia and the House of Political Education No. 162/I at the corner of Jiráskovy Street, 5th May Square, and Palackého and Josefa Knihy Streets in Rokycany built between 1974-1977.
In the corner of the intersection with the main road to Děčín, a paved space was delineated, a kind of square or gathering place for the adoration of the statue of Vladimir Ilyich Lenin and the legacy of his life's work. The statue, in life-size format by Ludvík Kodym and Božena Kodymová, paid tribute to him. The work on a high pedestal was ceremonially unveiled on October 31, 1987. The architectural solution was created by architect Jan Sedláček.42
The seat of the OV KSČ in Česká Lípa stands out with a style that borders on technicism and neo-functionality, multi-perspectivity, block structure, and impressive gradation of masses. A playful element in an otherwise austere structure was evident at the corner of Arbesova and Děčínská Streets. A network composed of tiny white and red balls announced the name of the user “OV KSČ.” The ability to variably rearrange the name can be understood as the author’s hidden idea of using the object differently. The new building was assessed by the local press as a “beautiful dominant of the district city.”43
On May 6, 1974, a meeting was held regarding the volumetric and zoning study of the most anticipated building in Česká Lípa at the time, the new cultural house and the entire cultural complex. The first design, inspired by the work of Austrian architect Gustav Peichl, was drawn by Václav Králíček, a pupil of Sial's Workshop.44 However, in 1974, Králíček was called to military service, and the project was taken over by architect Jiří Suchomel of Sial.45 Suchomel developed the study of the cultural facility from September 1973 to March 1974. The investor, the City National Committee in Česká Lípa, accepted the first phase of this study as early as December 1973. The initial documentation presented a preliminary architectural solution and construction program for the cultural house. In line with the detailed territorial plan by Vladimír Syrovátko, it was determined on June 20, 1973, where the construction would take place. In doing so, the city required that Sokolská Street be incorporated into the outer communication circuit of the historic center of Česká Lípa. It thus enforced further extensive sanitation in the central part of its historical core, despite the fact that architects Suchomel and Přikryl had developed an urban study in 1975 of their own initiative that would avoid demolitions [8]. The old row development between Gottwaldová, Sokolská, and Božena Němcová Streets was ultimately flattened by an explosion. Thus, Sokolská Street completely lost one of its frontages.
With the demolition, Česká Lípa gained two spacious construction parcels. The first, adjoining the complex of the Augustinian monastery, was designated according to the detailed territorial plan for the construction of the cultural house [9]. The second, between Sokolská, Gottwaldová Streets, and the then new bypass road to Děčín, was reserved for the construction of a shopping center. The project for the cultural house aimed to artistically and firmly complete the monastery complex, appropriately integrate the monastery garden, and visually connect it with the public city park [10]. Through it, the monastery area became accessible to the public. On the one hand, the new object was to unify a complex of cultural and cult facilities, while on the other, it was to harmonize architecturally with the planned shopping zone.
Given the scope of the construction project, it was already assumed from the outset that the construction would not take place all at once but would develop gradually, in phases. Thus, the building of the cultural house was stratified into several stages, specifically into three parts (block A, block B, and block E). Under the designation block A was hidden the construction of a small social hall, used primarily as a cinema with 174 seats, a large hall (630 seats), a foyer,46 a district public library, the operation of a restaurant, a polytechnic workshop for visitors, a display workshop for citywide promotion, a garage, and a commercial gallery that ensured direct connection between parking and the central pedestrian area. The large and small social halls, along with the furniture storage, were aligned so that by merging all three spaces, one hall could accommodate 900 seats. The large hall was then equipped with four mobile bridges with lighting and sound technology, the production of which was secured by Uranové doly Hamr. Block B consisted of a multifunctional hall (cinema, theater, concerts) and its accessories, club rooms, a photo studio, an art studio, the administrative office of the house, the editorial office of the newspaper Českolipský nástup, a trade union room, four service apartments, and two rental studios. A covered corridor allowed individual functional units of the cultural house to operate independently. Block E, the energoblok, contained the boiler room, refrigeration machinery, transformer stations, and the control room.
The head of the studio, Karel Hubáček, expressed his views on the study in the Record of Discussions on the Architectural Study of the Cultural House in Česká Lípa: “The primary intention is to create pedestrian communication at the department store and to ensure that part of the event rooms is lively throughout the day, which means placing in this part such facilities that have the greatest traffic in non-evening hours.”47 Objections against the project from the city's representatives primarily coincided with concerns that the cultural house, as well as the building intervention in the northern part of the territory, would overshadow the monastery. Further criticism was aimed at the dimension of the large event hall. Evaluators found it to be oversized. Engineer Maršálek doubted the proposed size of the cultural complex, unsure whether such a scale met the city’s needs. Česká Lípa historian Břetislav Vojtíšek criticized the insufficient respect of the designer towards the monastery and its garden as a significant monument of the city. In the Record of discussions on the architectural study of the cultural house in Česká Lípa, he stated that the construction of the cultural house would significantly disturb the view from the city towards the sacred dominant. Suchomel responded by saying that he would attempt to reduce the height of the building with a scenery room, exclude the boiler room from the area, and “move the building a little,” so that the view of the monastery would remain unobstructed.48
From its inception in 1984, the construction of the house faced obstacles due to difficult communication between the designer, contractor, and investor, and the insufficient financial base of the city for such an extensive object. Sixteen years passed from the initial study to the occupancy procedure in 1990! All the more, the architects were given a space for reflection and experimentation.
The city issued a territorial decision on the construction of the cultural house on May 13, 1983. The document Decision on the Change of the Unfinished Building of the Cultural House from 1989 states: “Originally, a territorial decision for this building was issued on August 29, 1978, but it lost its validity as a construction permit was not requested due to contractor disputes.”49 The foundation stone, grey-black syenite from Šluknov, was laid on Monday, November 21, 1983.50 However, construction only began after the building decision was issued on April 4, 1984. The object, heavily influenced by the work of James Stirling, was built on a trapezoidal floor plan. Its rear tract, the administrative part, plunged into the monastery garden with terraces, an atrium, and a concrete amphitheater with a capacity of 600 seats. The front or southern wall, sloping down towards the monastery garden, is divided into two sections by a wide central staircase leading into the garden. This exposed sloped side of the temple to the nine muses was perfectly suited for placing solar collectors. Suchomel clarified his solution in the spirit of energy conservation in the then Czechoslovakia, which was very unusual and pioneering, in an article in the journal Forum of Architecture and Construction in 2001: “After a brief series of thoughts on the possible concept of utilizing solar energy, we decided on a solution concentrated on heating and cooling the ventilation air of the two main halls and the foyer of the house. The sloping southern façade with an area of about 800 m2 was to act as a solar collector, heating the absorbed ventilation air, which, after relevant treatment in the air conditioning systems, would either be immediately used for ventilation or conveyed through a network of channels in the concrete slab of roughly 2400 m2 under the building, accumulating heat for later use. The same slab could be cooled at night by nighttime air during the summer and used during the day to cool the ventilation air.”51
The idea of low-energy operation did not occur to Suchomel immediately from the outset of the design of this cultural object. At an informal summer school of architecture in Jedlová in 1976, fresh returnee from an internship in Denmark, engineer Ctibor Dattel, introduced previously unknown possibilities for reducing energy consumption in building operation to engaged listeners. Dattel’s lecture strongly inspired Suchomel. He discovered that the prominent sloped surface of the southern façade perfectly met the prerequisites for utilizing solar radiation. This advantage, however, was only partially utilized in the operation of the building.
Given the wet territory, the building was founded on two hundred concrete piles set in the ground to a depth of up to 12 meters. The unconventional technology of the building posed significant challenges for the builders of Česká Lípa. The original project planned the use of the NOE "system" large-scale formwork technology from the supplier Pragostav Praha, which was used in the construction of the Palace of Culture in Prague.52 The designer initially also proposed a number of atypical elements. Problems arose with the delivery of atypical wooden and locksmith components. As a result, Suchomel had to change the project several times and revise the production documentation, replacing oak products, for example, with pine. The same was true for the steel components of the southern façade. Large-scale panels over both halls had certain deflections that the designer had not anticipated, hence the intended one-sided slope of the roof did not materialize.
One of the premises of Sial's architectural expression lay in the collaboration between architects and artists. Even at the Ještěd transmitter, these two components merged into a unified whole, Hubáček's architecture and Binar's interiors found harmony with the works of Stanislav Libenský, Jaroslava Brychtová, and Karel Wünsche. In the case of the cultural house in Česká Lípa, the architects collaborated with new-Bor glass artist and painter Ivo Rozsypal, whose large painted glass sculptures still adorn the walls of the foyer.
To connect the highly technological building with the softer natural environment, the adjustment of the monastery garden was to be undertaken. This garden, evoking French models from the Baroque period, partially covered the roof of the cultural venue. The entire complex was also characterized by the variety of surface materials. The shell of the southern façade was made of glass panels. Inside, polished granite stone claddings and pavements stood out. Paved surfaces continued outdoors on the terraces at the back of the roof. Various types of materials were complemented by travertine cladding on the side walls of Suchomel's house, imported from Yugoslavia.
Alongside the construction of the cultural house, starting around 1983, Jiří Suchomel was also engaged in the technical solution of the personal part of the new railway hub in Česká Lípa, as well as the study of a new dispatch building and main post office.
Another architect from Liberec's Sial, who participated in creating the “new center” of Česká Lípa, Emil Přikryl,53 began working on designs for the city in 1975. He was entrusted with the task of designing a large shopping center at the southern edge of the historic core. The existing network of self-service shops of Pramen and Jednota and various small shops, mostly squeezed into the old historic buildings, was already far from meeting the needs of the growing city at that time.
Přikryl completed the first design for the department store in 1975. He chose the central nave as a dominant element of the generously conceived five-aisled building, on which he placed a tall glass tower. He employed the construction system MS 72 in the design. However, this variant was not realized. The study eventually completed by Přikryl was presented only five years later, in 1980. By then, Česká Lípa had already prepared a clean, sanitized area next to the Café Union for it. The construction site for the new shopping center Uran No. 2662 [11] was selected in accordance with Vladimír Syrovátko’s master urban plan already in 1978. The national enterprise Základna rozvoje uranového průmyslu Příbram, Stráž pod Ralskem division, constructed it between 1980-1983. The investor was the District National Committee Česká Lípa.54
The architect set himself the goal of creating a clear and comprehensible building, where a person could easily navigate and the main function of the object would be evident externally. He wanted to achieve as much variability in construction as possible. However, to some extent, he had to adapt to the possibilities of the MS 71 construction system, which allowed a usable load of only 400 kg/m2 on the first floor due to limited spans.55 Regarding context, the link to Suchomel's project of the cultural house and indirectly to the entire historic center had priority. Visually and functionally, the cultural house and the shopping center were to form a single whole. Přikryl mostly achieved this through the calm horizontal line of the building. Thus, he did not overshadow an important landmark, the Art Nouveau Café Union, nor the view of the Augustinian monastery. Complicated, but simultaneously inspirational was the placement of Uran into the so far unaddressed traffic issues in the central part of the city. In the perspective of Česká Lípa, a bypass of road I/9 was already emerging. However, before construction work began on this necessary bypass, traffic passed through the middle of the historic core, across the square and Gottwaldova Street (now Jindřicha z Lipé).
Přikryl raised the two-story object from a rectangular floor plan. An elevated portion for air conditioning systems protruded from the flat roof, which also originally was to serve as a platform for a high illuminated kinetic sign bearing the name Uran. Its verticality would have contrasted with the horizontal character of the entire center. A similar contrast would arise between the “living” component of the moving structure of the sign and the calm symmetrical composition of Uran as a whole. Unfortunately, the sign was not realized, and the overall image of the building now suffers from its absence. A new element, likely to astonish passersby, lay in the designer's idea of a windowless façade. Only the rear side of the center was marked by atypical windows, seemingly pulled from the era of functionalism, either narrow horizontal or circular stair windows. However, the citizens found these insufficient given the size of the building. In 1982, city architect Václav Šuk tried to explain Přikryl's project in Českolipský nástup: “The shopping center was designed by experienced designers who knew very well the demands and conditions for buildings of this kind. Just look at the department store Ještěd in Liberec, Don in Hradec Králové, and Prior in Děčín - there are also virtually no windows. Because the energy balance speaks in favor of artificial lighting and air conditioning against the increased demands for heating glazed structures, as the internal arrangement of operations concentrates customers in the central parts of sales areas, the building without traditional windows is more advantageous. Moreover, I don’t even mention the architectural expressive means that can thus be better applied.”56
The object, composed of cubic components, was unified by a surface cladding of brown ceramic tiles. These tiles lent the building a weighty appearance. Upon completion of construction, citizens were surprised only by the one-story layout. However, this depended on the limited amount of investment funds. Because the plot, or rather its damp substrate, required expensive grounding, the architect could afford only to build a single-story house. This handicap later became evident. In the planned hotel area, near Přikryl's shopping center, another department store, the four-story Prior building, arose a few years later.
The interior of the sales area amounting to over 2,500 m2 was conceived by Přikryl as one interconnected whole. The store was divided only by load-bearing columns. In the internal area, the architect fundamentally simulated the atmosphere of an outdoor market with individual “stalls” offering various assortments. I see a reference to the technicism and constructive thinking of the Sial studio in the exposed framework of the ceiling. The architect conceived the building primarily purposefully; every element here has its justification. The southern supply area has a three-tract layout, while in the northern section, the design included a staircase, the center being dominated by the shopping area.
In 1993, when it had already become Banco supermarket, the object underwent interior adaptations. Their design was prepared by a Žilina team of architect Ĺubomír Zaymus, with engineer Tarek Buchara as the investor.57 The adjustments in the style of then-still fashionable postmodernism significantly transformed the original appearance of the interior space. In 1998, the supermarket was re-adapted again by the Beroun designer Marie Krejčová for the Delvita retail chain.58
The Uran shopping center in Česká Lípa was presented by Přikryl at the Architecture for All exhibition in 1986 and was also published in the Italian magazine Casabella at that time. The architecture of Uran follows function and purpose, was inspired by functionalism, but does not fully express the content of these concepts. For example, the consistent a priori symmetry of the object can be seen as a transgression against strictly functional formalism, and its materially heavy-tiled facade also came into conflict with the typical appearance of functionalist buildings.59 The architect certainly used tiles here as a reference to the only functionalist building in the center of Česká Lípa, similarly clad Baťa house. Besides references to motifs of functionalist architecture, the design of Uran absorbed impulses from the work of postmodernism pioneer Robert Venturi,60 for example, in the cross sections of circular windows, or in the massive corner columnar cylinders. The Uran shopping center is among the most valuable buildings in Česká Lípa. Unfortunately, local citizens still perceive it entirely negatively. For all, I cite the statement of the author of the website http://www.bohmischleipa.cz, a staunch traditionalist Jiří Kratochvíl: “I see nothing interesting about Uran; it really strikes me as a larger tiled military bunker. Just square. The interior space was simple and clear, that is exceptionally functional, but the exterior appearance really does not suit me.”61
In 1985, Emil Přikryl proposed regulations for the "new center" of Česká Lípa [12],62 regarding the southern edge of the historic core. He unified the communication network into a cohesive pattern, the perimeter of which was lined with mainly public buildings. He integrated two major, then still unfinished or unbuilt structures into the study, the Crystal cultural house by Jiří Suchomel and the Prior department store by Zdeněk Řihák and Jana Emmerová. Other compositional elements from the plan emerged as Přikryl's Uran shopping center and the remnants of the medieval water castle and summer house Červený dům. The ruins of the water castle, which was finally destroyed in 1975, were surrounded by park planting and a water ditch. A round addition with an inner courtyard was connected to the Červený dům. Respect for the historical past of the city was reflected in the regulatory plan with an anti-sanitation approach. Přikryl linked old components with new ones in a functional harmonious whole. He filled empty spaces. In front of the sloping cultural house, the author placed a semicircular closed gallery. A section of Sokolská Street was subordinated to cultural purposes; the Art Nouveau café Union was expanded with a hotel, and a cinema with a circular layout was situated near it. In 1985, before earthworks for the Prior department store construction began, houses in Erbenova Street were demolished. On this site, the author proposed a service building.
We have presented the most important buildings of post-war Česká Lípa. Among them, as we believe, the leading position belongs to Přikryl's Uran shopping center and Suchomel's Crystal cultural house. At Uran, effective links between neo-functionalist motifs and postmodern elements were forged. The experimental low-energy cultural house preceded the project of the test facility Solar House for the Astronomical Institute of the Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences in Ondřejov (1978-1980). The use of solar energy on such a scale, let alone for the operation of a cultural building, was unique in the then Czechoslovakia. The architects of Sial managed to stir the stagnant muddy waters of Czechoslovak construction. The rebellion against the impotence of construction enterprises, the dull repetition of prescribed patterns, and politically dictated provincialism still emanates from their works in Česká Lípa today.