Architect Ladislav Machoň helped give a face not only to Pardubice

Prague – The name of architect Ladislav Machoň is most often associated with Pardubice, where he designed several prominent buildings in the city center between the wars. This collaborator and follower of Jan Kotěra also left a significant mark in Prague and worked abroad. Machoň, who passed away on December 22, 1973, at the age of 85, designed not only postal offices or apartment buildings but also smaller structures, including, for example, the family duplex villa of the Čapek brothers in Prague's Vinohrady.

For the East Bohemian metropolis, from where his mother hailed and where Machoň is also laid to rest in a shared tomb with railway builder Jan Perner, he designed, for instance, the building of the postal and telegraph management. The building in the style of modern decorative art stands on the edge of the historic center, similar to the state technical school, where the electrical engineering vocational school is located today. According to Machoň's project, the functionalist seat of the court and tax office was also erected, as well as the post and telegraph office on today's Třída Míru, also designed in the same style.

Ladislav Machoň was also involved in the appearance of Smetanova Square, but his most famous realization in Pardubice is the residential building with a commercial passage, which now bears his name. Originally, it was supposed to be an ordinary house to replace an older lower structure, but the builders ultimately decided on a building from which they could achieve a higher profit. Machoň designed a passage for them modeled after those in Paris, which could accommodate many more commercial spaces.

The residential part of the building also experienced minor changes – instead of the originally planned 26 apartments, there were ultimately 31, albeit smaller ones; however, Machoň managed to create space for 28 shops in a relatively small area, and a restaurant was also established in the basement. The modernist "passage", completed in 1925, underwent extensive reconstruction between 2013 and 2015, which restored its former glory, although the shops within it today face challenges due to competition from a nearby modern shopping center.

At least the Pardubice passage operates in practically the same form as designed by Ladislav Machoň, unlike another once very popular public space from his studio. Machoň indeed created the interior of the Prague automat Koruna, which opened in 1931 on the ground floor of a late Art Nouveau palace at the lower end of Wenceslas Square. The place, which also inspired a similar establishment in London’s Regent Street, also designed by Machoň, saw about 18,000 diners pass through daily and was definitively closed in 1992.

Another of Machoň's restaurant interiors in Prague, the Black Brewery on Karlovo Square, has also ceased to exist, and after a hundred years, his designed colony of family houses for the cooperative Domov in Prague's Žižkov district is also in danger. From the original 63 houses and duplex or triplex homes designed in a unified style, including fencing, built for policemen or employees of electrical companies in the first half of the 1920s on what was then Prague's periphery, only a fraction remains in its original state. Most have undergone less or more successful renovations.

A different Machoň design, a symmetrical duplex villa for the Čapek brothers, built a few kilometers further south, fared better, as it was created around the same time as the Žižkov colony. Also originating from Ladislav Machoň's studio is the house which writer Adolf Wenig had built in Vinohrady, or the villa of sculptor Otakar Španiel, which was built in Ořechovka. These houses, in a more conservative national style, have mostly remained in their original form, unlike the functionalist villa in Baba, which has been damaged by insensitive modern modifications.

In the metropolis, Ladislav Machoň also designed apartment buildings on Korunní Street in Vinohrady, a sokol hall with a cinema in Hostivař, or a functionalist post office on Letenské Square in Holešovice. He also worked in the very center of Prague, completing the building of the Law Faculty of Charles University according to a concept designed by Kotěra – though he designed the interiors himself – and was behind the significant reconstruction of Klementinum, where he created a new reading room building in the courtyard, for instance.

Born in Prague, related through his mother’s side to Jan Perner, he studied architecture at the Czech Technical University under Josef Schulz and Josef Fanta, after which he joined Jan Kotěra. In his youth, Ladislav Machoň undertook many study trips, visiting Germany, Belgium, France, the Netherlands, and Britain. However, he also studied architecture in Dalmatia, Istria, and Italy; during his expeditions, Machoň also ventured into Northern Europe, traveling through Denmark, Sweden, and Norway.

In addition to family homes, apartment buildings, and official structures, Ladislav Machoň also focused on smaller buildings, such as the functionalist gas station in Prague's Zličín, which unfortunately was demolished in June 2022, already significantly devastated. In Naarden, Netherlands, he modified a chapel where Jan Ámos Comenius is buried, and for the French city of Nîmes, he designed a monument with Otakar Španiel in honor of French historian Ernest Denis, who significantly supported the establishment of Czechoslovakia.

Machoň spent most of his professional life in his own studio, and since 1928 he was also a member of the Prague regulatory commission. During the war, he was active in the resistance, especially during the May uprising, and after liberation, he served in the national committee; after February 1948, he worked in the Chief Architect's Office of the capital city of Prague. However, he was affected by political processes, was imprisoned for some time, but in the 1960s he was rehabilitated. His wife, Augusta Machoňová-Müllerová, was also an architect, with whom he occasionally collaborated.