Pavel Janák

Pavel Janák (March 12th 1882 † 1956) is an architect and a Czech town planner, theorist of the rondocubism.

Biography

Pavel Janák is born on March 12th, 1882 with Karlín, a district of Prague. After its baccalaureat (1899), it is registered with the Czech equivalent and is visitor with the German equivalent of the 3Ecole Nationale Sup3erieure of arts and trades (respectively České vysoké učení technické and Německá vysoká škola technická ) and studies town planning and architecture with the professors Josef Schulz (author of the National theater and the National museum of Prague) and Josef Zítek (also author of the first section of the National theater in Prague). Between 1906 and 1907, he studies in Vienna near the professor Otto Wagner who will influence thereafter much his work. He obtains, in 1907, a purse to visit Italy and his monuments.

Artěl

Its centers of interest are not limited to only architectural constructions but also to decorative arts. In 1907, he is cofounder of Artěl, a co-operative of artists, creators and designers which create decorative objets d'art (porcelain, glass, crystal, textile, furniture, etc).

He is member of the artistic Cercle Mánes of 1905 to 1949 with an interruption between 1911 and 1917.

Theorist and expert

The following year, he collaborates with Jan Kotěra on the project of house for the exposure of Jubilée of 1908.

In a movement of national revival Czechoslovakian, it is made theorist of the modern architecture and sees it like the respectful heiress of the traditions, the history and the national heritage. Prague saw an urban boom then and makes it possible to the architects many to put their theory into practice. Whereas is born the modern architecture, Janák is resolutely passeist and goes out of forgery against the contemporary efforts to unify structure, materials and modénature of the buildings. It exposes its sights in the test Od moderní architektury K architektuře (Of the modern architecture towards architecture, 1910), whose title is en-soi a program reactionary.

In 1909, it is named at the post of architect of the department of the Ponts and Chaussées of the town of Prague. Within the framework of these functions, one owes him the decoration of several bridge on Elba and Vltava.

With Josef Gočár, in 1912, it founds the artistic Workshops of Prague ( Pražské umělecké dílny ) of which will leave movable and parts of furnishing.

He is the author of the Czechoslovakian house for the World Fair of Rio de Janeiro in 1922. The house is designed in an elaborate Czechoslovakian folk style which it calls “national style”. In the same spirit, it carries out crématorium of Pardubice between 1922 and 1923 (see illustration above).

After 1925, the architecture of Janák takes a calmer turn, more rested: it becomes from the “decorativism” cubist to the functionalism. He does not scorn either to put the hand at small projects of monuments, furniture, etc as to great urban work of Prague which knows between the two World wars an economic boom without precedent.

Its masterpiece is the construction of a whole of villas with Baba, in the outskirts of the city of Prague. Under the aegis of the Union of Czech work ( Svaz českého díla ) that Janák chairs, a colony of villas of style Bauhaus is conceived between 1928 and 1932, and is built in the following years. Several architects took part in the project the individual needs of the pivés customers but the unit keeps a single character because of the enacted general principles: healthy habitat, luminosity, modernism, purity of the elements and the frontages, proportions of the houses and hiring ones compared to the others, planted surfaces…

It is also active in the conservation of the Historic buildings, since having always paid an constant attention with the history and the inheritance. In an article, he writes:

“If the architect wants to deal with the monuments, it must include/understand the history of the building, its past in order to bring there an answer which changes it in the most discrete possible way, to carry reached the least possible to the architectural style which it must adapt to a modern function, it must sacrifice the least possible and keep as much as possible so that is preserved the cultural and artistic unit preliminary draft. ”

Its first project in this direction is the restoration of the Palais Černín, undertaken between 1928 and 1934 with O. Fierlinger which deals with the gardens of the palate. It is a question of transforming the palatine complex into Ministry for Foreign Affairs. In 1936, it deals with the rehabilitation of the Town hall of the Old city.

In 1936, it is named architect as a chief of the Château of Prague, recognition implicit of the part which it played for the definition of a “national style” and for the defense of the inheritance. However, the Agreements of Munich and the years of war quickly put the hola at its efforts which concentrate then on the minimal maintenance of the Château of Prague and consist in applying the brake at the requirements of the authorities Nazis of place.

In recognition of achieved work, it receives in 1952 the title of prize winner of the Price of the State to the first rank ( laureát státní ceny prvního stupně ).

Pavel Janák dies in Prague the first August 1956.

Works

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