<p>Fifty-five years ago, Karel Řepa, the author of the Pardubice train station, passed away.</p>

Prague - Architect Karel Řepa, who died on March 2, 1963, at the age of 67, significantly influenced the current appearance of Pardubice. His studio is responsible for the railway station building, which experts believe is likely the most impressive structure of its kind built in our country after World War II. Řepa also designed several apartment buildings, the cinema Jas in the city center, the Industrial Museum building, where a secondary school is located today, and several striking villas near Matiční Lake.

Ŕepa, a native of Nové Pleso in the Náchod region, studied at the Prague School of Applied Arts under Josip Plečnik and completed his studies there after his teacher moved to Ljubljana. He began his career as an architect in Prague, but settled in Pardubice at the beginning of the 1920s, where he designed dozens of buildings. Among other things, he was the chief architect of the Exhibition of Physical Education and Sports, which took place in 1931, for which he designed not only the still-standing stadium but also several pavilions in the functionalist style.

With the exception of the pavilion that was relocated to Vysoké Mýto shortly after the exhibition and turned into the center of the local Tyrš swimming pool, none of the others remain. Řepa's buildings can also be found elsewhere in the Pardubice region - such as the school in Chvaletice, the municipal building in Dolní Rovní, or the interior of the Church of the Assumption of the Virgin Mary in Ústí nad Orlicí. In the mid-1930s, he also designed a columbarium at the Pardubice Central Cemetery. Among his last works is the theater building in Zlín, which he designed in collaboration with his son Miroslav in the late 1950s.