Protestant Church

The Evangelical Church of the Helvetic Confession in Hradec Králové had the ambition to build a representative church in Hradec Králové since the end of the 19th century. While
the first designs by Václav Rejchl Sr. in a historicist and moderately modern style were never implemented, hope was brought by the young, radical architect Josef Gočár, who had already finished his first independent commission in Hradec Králové, a reinforced concrete staircase.

While Rehjchl’s previous designs, like Liska’s final project, were based on traditional Christian church types – a longitudinal layout of a prayer room with a perched tower and a separate rectory – Gočár approached the task much more radically. Following the example of Peter Behrens and Auguste Perret, Gočár concentrated on a distinctive gesture of form, free of any historical connotations.

The church was to be erected on a longitudinal plan with a semicircular end. It was to be covered with a semicircular vault and an apse. The semicircular portico, elevated on fourteen steps, was connected to the vestibule, the anteroom, and the high prayer room. Unlike other Christian churches, the presbytery was to face the west, i.e. the entrance. It was supposed to be walked around and the parishioners’ pews were located at the back. On the ground floor, there was also a gallery separated from the main nave by an arcade with semicircular arches. Above the arcade, there were narrow strips of stained glass windows. The front of the church was broken by a large, probably also stained-glass window with geometric patterns in
the shape of a straight arch. The absence of a tower and any traditional layout and appearance of a Christian church and the emphasis on a simple arched form are complemented by an ambulatory with oval windows and a system of piers between
the stained glass windows carrying a prominent cornice around the perimeter of the church, which may be reminiscent of the stylized buttressing and windows of Gothic cathedrals.
The distinctive yet simple architectural gesture, free from architectural and religious traditions, apparently did not please the church leaders, so they approached the young architect Oldřich Liska, who delivered a much more conventional design with a tower. Architectural historian Jakub Potůček writes that “although [the church building designed by Gočár] makes a much more classical impression, its aerodynamic shapes do not deny the influence of the utopian architecture of the Italian Futurists,” but we can rather relate the architect’s design to his search for a new sublime style that Behrens wrote about in his text “What is Monumental Art?” published in Styl magazine in 1910: “All the particularities, all the peculiarities of whimsical expression are harmful.” He also added: “We ask for strict, high seriousness, not ornateness, appeal, whim.”

LZL