Martin Strakoš: About Karel Kotas - Lecture with Book Introduction

The lecture by architectural historian Martin Strakoš will introduce the personality of architect Karel Kotas.
Kotas arrived in Moravian Ostrava in the spring of 1925 to serve as a construction supervisor during the construction of the New Town Hall. In addition to influencing the appearance of this landmark, he soon began to participate in other projects related to the transformation of the Ostrava industrial conurbation into an industrial metropolis.

According to Kotas's designs, the Moravská Ostrava Savings Bank was built in the city center, now the town hall building in the central part of the city, as well as the headquarters of the Riunione Adriatica di Sicurta insurance company at the corner of Zámecká and Puchmajerova streets, the headquarters of the tennis club, the department store Brouk a Babka on Smetanova náměstí, the palace of the Civic Savings Bank on Reální street, residential buildings of the Workers' Savings Bank on Veleslavínova street, and the Melantrich palace at the corner of Umělecká and Nádražní streets. He also designed the eye pavilion of the city hospital and the Methodist church chapel. In the late 1930s, he added the palace of the General Directorate of the Northern Railway Ferdinand with remarkable artistic decoration on Prokešovo náměstí and the neighboring apartment building.

In his projects, Kotas combined an appreciation for functionality with an emphasis on material composition, colorfulness, and refined mass and spatial composition. He utilized forms of the new classicism and purism, enriched by functionalist principles with respect to the given environment. He paid attention to modern Italian architecture, followed the work of Le Corbusier and other representatives of the artistic and architectural life of the time. He collaborated with artists and engaged in community activities. In addition to Moravian Ostrava, he contributed to the shaping of modern Brno, Prague, and the spa town of Teplice nad Bečvou. The monograph released this year on Kotas's lifelong work discusses all these stages of his creation. The introductory lecture by one of the editors of the volume will focus primarily on Kotas's Ostrava plans and realizations in the context of the architectural development of the 1920s and 1930s.

The lecture will take place on Thursday, November 3, at 5 PM at the address of the Ostrava office of the National Heritage Institute, Odboje 1, Ostrava (next to the City Hospital of Ostrava).

At the lecture, the book Karel Kotas 1894–1973, published by the Municipal House in Brno with the NPÚ, will be presented.
The event will take place with the participation of NPÚ General Director Ing. arch. Nada Goryczková.