Evžen Linhart

Evžen Linhart pursued his studies in architecture at the Czech Technical University in Prague from 1918 to 1924 under the guidance of Antonín Engel. Following his graduation, he became a member of the Association of Modern Culture Devětsil, where he collaborated with architects to form the so-called Purist Four (with Jaroslav Fragner, Karel Honzík, and Vít Obrtel). Vít Obrtel expressed the Purist Four’s principles, stating their intention to fill “the world of summer swimming pools, but also the world of purposeful industrial production, the world of high streets with cafés and adverts, and the world of railway stations and ports – the world of Sunday gatherings with grog and gramophone, with fountains tinkling in gardens and lanterns lighting up one after another.”[1] 
 

One of Evžen Linhart’s early realized projects was the so-called Teachers’s House at 371 Pod Plískavou Street, Prague-Hostivař, where he implemented his concept of an atrium collective house between 1925 and 1927.[2] This three-storey building on a slope featured small apartments on two floors for teachers with their families and single teachers. The vertical circulation was designed in two opposing shafts connected by a spacious open atrium. The top floor housed common laundry rooms, drying rooms, a club room, and four terraces. This innovative solution served as Linhart’s prototype for collective housing, a fundamental unit aimed at preserving a communal character while being scalable for future construction to create entire street blocks. Linhart applied this principle in subsequent years in block housing in Prague-Žižkov, including a five-storey building with loggias and two internal atriums at 1623 Radhoštská Street, and to a lesser extent in a building at 1775 Jičínská Street, lacking atriums or loggias. The most elaborate application of the atrium module was planned in an tenement house in Prague-Holešovice, featuring four internal atria with five stair shafts, although this plant was not realized. In 1927–1929, he brought to life his own project of a villa in Prague-Dejvice, representing a variant of the functionalist villa, akin to the model housing built by the Union of Czechoslovak Works in the Baba colony. In collaboration with Antonín Heythum, Linhart designed a villa on the slope at No. 1710, distinguished by its symmetrical exterior divided by a glazed strip of loggias. At the turn of 1927 and 1928, he and Vít Obrtel took part in a competition for St. Wenceslas Church in Prague-Vršovice, conceiving it as a glazed oval anchored in a square peristyle. The winning design, however was by Josef Gočár and was realized in 1929–1930. In the early 1930s, Linhart designed several functionalist houses and tenement houses. Towards the end of the 1930s, the French Lyceum in Prague-Dejvice was built based on Linhart’s design, featuring a reinforced concrete skeleton that facilitated the use of strip windows and provided ample light for corridors and classrooms. In 1938, Linhart collaborated with Vladimír František Hofman in the competition for the new building of the Savings Bank of Hradec Králové on the Eliščino nábřeží embankment in Hradec Králové.[3] Linhart and Hofman collaborated also on several projects, including the tenement house of Dr. Vilma Gottwaldová-Felkelová in Hradec Králové.[4] Linhart further collaborated with Václav Hilský on a project for a collective house in Litvínov; the construction of the western part of the project began during his Linhart’s lifetime but was not completed until 1958. 
 

LZL 

Notes:

[1] Vít Obrtel, Renesance [Renaissance], Tam-Tam: Hudební leták, 1926, č. 6, s.3–4.

[2] Building, vol. I, 1925–1926, p. 191.

[3] Ladislav Zikmund-Lender, „Odzvání se starým formám“: Spořitelna královéhradecká jako agent na poli meziválečné architektury v Hradci Králové, Královéhradecko, roč. 13, No. 2022, pp. 163–180

[4] Ladislav Zikmund-Lender, Struktura města v zeleni: Moderní architektura v Hradci Králové, Hradec Králové 2017, p. 181