Building PZO Omnipol
Unlike other Foreign Trade Enterprises (PZO), Omnipol, which primarily sells weapons and aircraft to Western markets, built a new building in the center of Prague after the fire at its original headquarters, the Veletržní Palace. It was allocated a gap in the street line created by the demolition of three historic houses in 1967. The new building was designed by a team from the Prague Regional Project Institute, consisting of Zdeněk Kuna (*1926, professor at UMPRUM, head of the KPÚ Prague), Zdeněk Stupka (1913-1988), Milan Valenta, Jaroslav Zdražil, and Ladislav Vrátník from 1974 to 1976, and constructed by the Yugoslav company Progress between 1975 and 1979. The building, in a late International style with pronounced features of Brutalism, occupies nearly the entire area of the plot, but even from today's perspective, it is remarkable how gracefully it has managed to blend into the fragile historical context. The leitmotif of the building became appropriateness, lightness, and elegance. The well-chosen scale adapts the eight-story building to its surroundings by setting back the two upper floors, which align with the height of the surrounding buildings and their shaping evokes the original division of the three older houses.
The reinforced concrete monolithic structure, wedged into the gap, allowed for not only a suitable interior operation but also influenced the external expression of the building. Facing the street, it aligns with the street line and features a fully glazed facade made of opal glass with a bluish anti-reflective coating and bronze anodized aluminum frames. The slender pillars of the supporting structure divide the glass surface into seven vertical panels, remaining exposed at the ground floor and forming a transition from the street to the ceremoniously recessed entrance area. The open ground floor visually lightens the building, which was also the goal of further work with the facade. The extensive glass surface is articulated by a structural play of glazed bays that protrude from the facade at two different heights and depths. This dynamic structural element reliably softens the building's expression, again adapting it to the surrounding context. The courtyard facade of the house was designed with an emphasis on functionality, thus utilizing band windows in combination with light ceramic cladding and plaster, with a permeable grid of the supporting structure.
As refined as the exterior, the interiors were also addressed in a similar way. The author was architect Ladislav Vrátník (1927-2010), who chose a variant octagonal layout for the strictly orthogonal exterior of the building, which reflected in the shaping of the furniture, accessories, and the internal layouts of the building.
Like most buildings of the Foreign Trade Enterprises, the Omnipol building far exceeded the standard of contemporary construction production, not only in the quality of the architectural design but also in the materials and their processing, as well as in terms of internal equipment (air conditioning, elevators, underground parking with its own washing bay, diesel generator in case of power failure). Unfortunately, since the building's completion, most of the contemporary interiors have been lost to gradual modifications.
The PZO Omnipol building was highly regarded already at the time of its creation. The elegant architectural solution has demonstrated timeless qualities, placing it among the great works of Czech architectural production even today. If the current renovation is carried out sensitively and with respect to the original whole, the investor can look forward to obtaining a distinctive representative residence that stands out even by today's standards.
The reinforced concrete monolithic structure, wedged into the gap, allowed for not only a suitable interior operation but also influenced the external expression of the building. Facing the street, it aligns with the street line and features a fully glazed facade made of opal glass with a bluish anti-reflective coating and bronze anodized aluminum frames. The slender pillars of the supporting structure divide the glass surface into seven vertical panels, remaining exposed at the ground floor and forming a transition from the street to the ceremoniously recessed entrance area. The open ground floor visually lightens the building, which was also the goal of further work with the facade. The extensive glass surface is articulated by a structural play of glazed bays that protrude from the facade at two different heights and depths. This dynamic structural element reliably softens the building's expression, again adapting it to the surrounding context. The courtyard facade of the house was designed with an emphasis on functionality, thus utilizing band windows in combination with light ceramic cladding and plaster, with a permeable grid of the supporting structure.
As refined as the exterior, the interiors were also addressed in a similar way. The author was architect Ladislav Vrátník (1927-2010), who chose a variant octagonal layout for the strictly orthogonal exterior of the building, which reflected in the shaping of the furniture, accessories, and the internal layouts of the building.
Like most buildings of the Foreign Trade Enterprises, the Omnipol building far exceeded the standard of contemporary construction production, not only in the quality of the architectural design but also in the materials and their processing, as well as in terms of internal equipment (air conditioning, elevators, underground parking with its own washing bay, diesel generator in case of power failure). Unfortunately, since the building's completion, most of the contemporary interiors have been lost to gradual modifications.
The PZO Omnipol building was highly regarded already at the time of its creation. The elegant architectural solution has demonstrated timeless qualities, placing it among the great works of Czech architectural production even today. If the current renovation is carried out sensitively and with respect to the original whole, the investor can look forward to obtaining a distinctive representative residence that stands out even by today's standards.
Sources and Literature
- Otakar Nový, K budově v Nekázance, Architecture of Czechoslovakia IV, 1981, pp. 150-155
- Otakar Nový, Architectural Creation 35 Years of KPÚ Prague 1983, unnumbered
- Růžena Baťková et al.: Artistic Monuments of Prague, New Town-Vyšehrad-Vinohrady. Prague 1998, p. 488
- Jaromíra Šimoníková, Interior Design, Prague 1982, pp. 64-65
- Petr Kratochvíl, Architecture of the Seventies and Eighties. In: Marie Platovská - Rostislav Švácha (eds.), History of Czech Visual Art VI, 2007, p. 396
- Jindřich Noll - Jan E. Svoboda - Vladislav Skala: Prague 1945-2003. Chapters from Post-war and Contemporary Architecture, Prague 2006, p. 44
- Zdeňek Lukeš: Prague Modern IV, Litomyšl 2015, p. 41
- Tereza Mléčková, Architect Zdeněk Kuna. Master's thesis defended at the Department of Art History, Faculty of Arts, Charles University in 2015, supervisor Vojtěch Lahoda. Available at https://is.cuni.cz/webapps/zzp/detail/148604/
- http://www.omnipol.cz/cz/civilni/o_firme-historie-historie.php
- http://abart-full.artarchiv.cz/osoby.php?Fvazba=osobavdokumentech&IDosoby=49827
- /14_architektonicky_cenne_stavby_a_soubory_text.pdf
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šakal
20.12.15 05:33
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Tomáš Vích
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