Hotel and transmitter Ještěd have been extending the mountain for half a century

Prague – One of the most original architectural works in the Czech Republic is the mountain hotel with a television transmitter on Ještěd. The hyperboloid, 94 meters tall with a circular floor plan of 33 meters in diameter, uniquely combines the functions of a transmitter, hotel, and restaurant. Both experts and laypeople are still captivated by the way the building complements the silhouette of the mountain, which is 1012 meters high: "That initial idea burst out of me. I knew I had to extend the mountain. And give the transmitter the shape of a cone, so that the winds would glide over it. Ještěd is an extremely windy mountain, and a classical wall would serve much worse," recalled the creator of the building, architect Karel Hubáček. The hotel and transmitter on Ještěd were officially opened 50 years ago, on July 9, 1973, and became accessible to the public on September 21, 1973.

Even before its completion, Hubáček received the prestigious Auguste Perret Prize (1969) from the International Union of Architects, which he could not attend due to travel restrictions imposed by the then-communist regime. Ještěd is a Czech national cultural monument, its silhouette appears in the logo of the city of Liberec, in the coat of arms of the region, at the local university, and in the logo of the local first-league football club Slovan Liberec. It has also become a building of the 20th century.

The quartzite peak of Ještěd remained almost untouched for centuries. It was not until 1844 that the Hasler couple from Liberec began carrying food and drinks up. And when, three years later, the forest ranger Herbert built the first wooden cabin on Ještěd, he rented it to the Haslers. They later built a sturdier lodge on Ještěd, followed by another one known as Rohan's Lodge or Rohanka.

In 1906, a large hotel with a huge dormitory, dozens of rooms, a ballroom for 200 people, and a veranda was constructed according to the plans of the Liberec builder Ernst Schäfer. Everything was reduced to ashes in a fire that broke out in January 1963. Since 1933, a cable car owned by České dráhy has been serving the public for trips to the summit of Ještěd.

An architectural competition was announced for a new project, and surprisingly, Karel Hubáček's work was selected. "Hubáček's design was a bit of a shock for many people because after the old hotel was destroyed, they were expecting some traditional mountain lodge, not a spacecraft," declared Jiří Křížek, director of the North Bohemian Museum.

The jury then stated that the work stands out for its clarity and fortunate harmony with the surrounding landscape. The foundation stone for the hotel and transmitter was laid on July 30, 1966. But building it was no small feat. The most challenging task was the technical aspect of the new structure – all the antennas, which protrude from other transmitters, were placed inside the building, necessitating the development of a special laminate shell.

A major challenge was calculating the load of the entire structure, which Zdeněk Patrman ultimately completed. Many technical issues were being tested here for the very first time; some things were done as prototypes or completely on the fly – for instance, the twelve-meter-long poles made of plastic were ultimately produced by a factory that manufactures fishing rods.

The construction, which cost 64 million Czechoslovak crowns, was opened in 1973. The elegant conical shape of Ještěd earned Hubáček the Auguste Perret Prize in 1969 for its elegance and practical use of modern technologies. The transmitter was also declared the Czech Building of the 20th Century by the magazine Architekt and designated a national technical monument.

In the past, the tower was visited by around half a million people annually, but the recent coronavirus pandemic and the fall of the cable car to Ještěd in October 2021 (its upper station is about 100 meters east of the building), which has not been running since then, have significantly affected the operation of the hotel and restaurant. Since 2000, České Radiokomunikace has been the owner of the hotel and transmitter.

Architect Karel Hubáček (1924-2011) founded the SIAL studio with his colleague Miroslav Masák in 1969, also known as SIAL Kindergarten. The studio gained worldwide renown, and several generations of widely recognized Czech architects have emerged from this school. Other projects realized by Hubáček include the already demolished Ještěd shopping center in Liberec, the Water Supply Regulation Tower in Prague-Dívčí hrady, and meteorological towers in Prague-Libuš.