Plzeň will renovate the house with an interior by Loose for the new Patton Museum

Plzeň – Plzeň today launched a two-hundred-million complete reconstruction of the building at Klatovská Street 19, where one of the preserved First Republic interiors by the world-renowned architect Adolf Loos is located. Over the next two years, the more than 20-year dilapidated building will be transformed into the new experiential museum Patton Memorial Pilsen, currently located in the cultural house Peklo. The project will include the construction of a glass atrium in the inner courtyard of the building. In it, there will be a place for the legendary American tank Sherman M4, which stood in the Plzeň zoo for 13 years, said today to ČTK the technical deputy mayor Pavel Bosák.

"The result will be something unforgettable. It won't be just an ordinary simple museum created from the reconstruction of a historical building. Inside, for example, there will be a room where people can experience the atmosphere of an air raid on Škodovka. On the one hand, it may be oppressive, on the other hand, it may bring much closer the events of 1945. In the room, visitors will be able to sit down and not only hear the sounds of the raid but also feel the vibrations caused by the bombings in the shelters," described Bosák.

New experiential audiovisual exhibitions will focus on the liberation of Plzeň and Western Bohemia by Allied forces. "It won't be a completely traditional museum based on exhibits, but primarily an exhibition based on experiences. We will try to present the 20th century in an unconventional emotional way," said the director of the city organization Plzeň - TURISMUS Zuzana Koubíková.

The interior, which Loos designed in the early 1930s for the Jewish industrialist Semler family, will, according to her, demonstrate the prosperity of the wealthy industrial society of the First Republic and also the tragic fates of the Jews who were forced to leave Plzeň before the war.

According to Mayor Roman Zarzycký (ANO), the attraction will be the Sherman tank. "It is a symbol of the liberation of Plzeň by the American army and was donated to our city by the grandson of General Patton," he recalled. However, getting the thirty-five-ton tank into the inner courtyard, where the only access point is a narrow passage, will be one of the most challenging steps of the project.

The tank is currently undergoing restoration and is expected to be moved into the inner courtyard later this year. "We will have to close Klatovská Street, remove the tram trolley lines, so that we can fit the largest crane in the republic here, which will lift the colossus and move it onto a concreted platform, and we will build the museum around it," Bosák described. The crane will have to lift the tank to about a fifteen-meter height to transfer it over the three-story building with chimneys. "We considered various options - disassembling the tank, cutting the tank, which of course we did not want to do, we considered making a model, but that would not be authentic, we wanted to have the real tank," added Bosák.

The costs for the reconstruction of the building and the establishment of a new version of the Patton museum, which will celebrate its 20th anniversary next year, are 210.5 million crowns. The city received a grant of 54.4 million crowns through integrated territorial investment from the European IROP program.

The building at Klatovská 19 plays an important role in the history of Plzeň in the 20th century. After the arrival of American soldiers on May 6, 1945, the commander of the German garrison, Georg von Majewski, signed the unconditional surrender in Loos's interior. Shortly thereafter, he committed suicide in front of the soldiers of the 16th Armored Division of the American army. The building was then used by the Czechoslovak army for registering conscripts and reservists, and in August 1968, during the occupation of Czechoslovakia, it was briefly occupied by the Soviet army.