Josef Gočár was a great builder of Czech Cubism

Prague – One of the most distinctive creators of Czech modern architecture, Josef Gočár, born on March 13, 1880, became famous for his magnificent cubist and functionalist works. His buildings played with angular and arched shapes, and their quirky curves attracted both admiration and outrage. Gočár wanted to transform the Old Town Hall into a cubist skyscraper, and he turned Hradec Králové into the “salon of the republic.”

A world rarity is Gočár's famous cubist café Orient, which was successfully reconstructed and reopened in 2005 in the house U Černé Matky Boží in Prague's Celetná street. Gočár also transformed Lázně Bohdaneč beyond recognition; in 1910 he built a reinforced concrete water tower and a building for the cavalry barracks there, and later a cubist spa building.

In nearby Pardubice, the renowned architect designed the Winternitz Automatic Mills - a vast structure adorned with ornamental patterns of light and dark bricks, resembling a romantic castle. In Hradec Králové, he created a comprehensive regulatory plan, surrounding the old town with a belt of greenery or water. Hradec thus became the first city designed with metropolitan ambitions.

In 1909, Gočár presented his proposal for the completion of Prague's Old Town Hall. It was to feature a pyramid resembling the Tower of Babel, which critics claimed would obscure the view of Prague Castle. In 1912, he co-founded the Prague Artistic Workshops for producing cubist furniture, which represents an impressive chapter of his work. He worked on projects, lectured, and wrote. From 1928 to 1931, he served as rector of the Prague AVU.

In later years, Gočár began to lean towards functionalism and constructivism, as evident in his villa district in Prague on Baba and the Phoenix Palace in Prague's Wenceslas Square. A pearl of functionalism is also his St. Wenceslas Church in Vršovice.

In 2000, Gočár, who passed away in September 1945 in Jičín, was voted the greatest personality of Czech architecture of the 20th century in a poll.