Masarykovo náměstí Square

The first regulation works on Husovo náměstí Square, later Masarykovo náměstí Square, began in 1923 in connection with the completion of the Anglobank. The owners of

the neighboring tenement houses Nos. 510 and 511, Gustav Honke and František Tomášek, sensed an opportunity and decided to add one story to their buildings so that the height level would be equal to the neighboring Anglobanka Bank. The Municipal Technical Office apparently coordinated the whole action because the architect Josef Gočár and his local collaborator Josef Fňouk were asked to unify the whole front that was to form the front of

the future square, and at the same time the Building and Housing Cooperative for Hradec Králové and Its Surroundings stepped in to take care of the buildings in the north-eastern part of the square towards Karla IV Street. The design for the extension and new façade of houses nos. 510 and 511, built by Josef Novotný after 1911, was created in December 1923 and signed by the architect Josef Fňouk. At the same time, plans were drawn up for the so-called four houses, i.e. a front of houses with four entrances, No. 628. Later, the building was actually divided into four separate houses (1278, 1279, 1280, and 628). However, Gočár’s conception of the façade was uncertain. In undated drafts, which probably preceded the final design of March 1924, Gočár considered that the houses 510, 511, and the new building 628 would look completely different. At first, he suggested the use of unplastered masonry, which was to articulate the façade in regular lesenes and fill in the bands of the window axes with alternating smooth plaster. The last two floors were to be filled entirely with bricks. The entire front of the houses was to be finished with a straight, smooth cornice. This was apparently followed by the November 1923 design, which removed areas of unplastered exposed masonry and left the bricks only in the vertical lesenes. In December 1923, two designs of

the developed façade were made, signed by Josef Fňouk. Fňouk dispensed with the exposed masonry altogether and suggested to articulate the first to fourth floors with tall, distinctive lesenes with a double profile. The row of small windows on the last floor was to be rectangular, in an alternative design round. The alternative design with round windows was articulated by triple, stepped lesene frames. It was only in the March 1924 design, signed by Josef Gočár, that the final form of the distinctive lesene and the termination of the crown cornice with so-called swallow tails, a profile enclosed between two V-shaped lesenes, appeared. The detailed plans for the façade were drawn up by Gočár in May and July 1924. The color design also dates from this time: the lesenes, the surrounds of the façade fields and their panels are painted dark brown, so it is possible that Gočár did not abandon the idea of referring to the exposed masonry and planned to at least combine the color of the façade in

a combination of light plaster with brick brownish red. 

 

In March 1924, when Gočár arrived at the final form of the façade of the square terminated by the so-called swallow tails, he also made a drawing with the overall view of the square.

It shows that the idea of the statue of T. G. Masaryk, which was to be made by Jan Štursa, was far from clear. The design shows an unidentified figure in a walking jacket standing in

a casual counterpoint on a curved conical base with a profiled cornice. It was not until 1925 that the design of the public space itself came to the fore. From February comes a proposal for the paving and placement of the statue, from March a proposal for the paving of “wooden blocks” in the square, in Čelakovského Street and in Baťkovo náměstí Square (this was probably drawn up by the Municipal Technical Office), and from September a detailed design of the statue. The foundation stone for the statue was laid on 8 March 1925 on Masaryk’s seventy-fifth birthday. The design of the statue had to be taken over by Otto Gutfreund after Jan Štursa’s suicide on 2 May 1925. The handing over of the commission was questioned in the local press in connection with Gutfreund’s monument to the Grandmother in Babiččino údolí Valley in Ratibořice, which aroused justified embarrassment. It was not until 30 May 1926 that the detailed design of the pedestal, its foundations and details were drawn up.

The monument with the finished bronze statue, which depicts Masaryk in a calm, balanced posture with his left leg slightly bent, was unveiled on the eighth anniversary of the founding

of Czechoslovakia on 28 October 1926. A remarkable hypothesis was brought forward by Jiří T. Kotalík: “Jan Štursa and Pavel Janák were originally commissioned for this work

[the monument to T. G. Masaryk], but the sculptor was not satisfied with the work during a period of severe life and creative crisis. [...] After Štursa’s suicide, Josef Gočár took over (in July 1925).” Neither this statement nor any involvement of Janák could be proven, but earlier drafts and correspondence show that Gočár was to be the architect before. In the text “Práce Josefa Gočára v Hradci Králové” (The Work of Josef Gočár in Hradec Králové), published in Styl magazine in 1926–1927, the architect Alois Kubíček writes the following about the redesign of Masaryk Square: “It was Gočár’s greatest work in Hradec Králové at that time,

in which he fully highlighted the peculiar character of the square of our small town, years ago relatively doubtful; it was necessary to emphasize the square when it was destined for

the location of Štursa’s statue of our first president.”

 

Although the design for the paving was made at the same time as the design for the base and landscaping of the square (the square slopes slightly to the south-west) in February 1925,

the final design is dated 4 August of the same year. The square was to be paved with strips of grey granite paving and a three-colored paving mosaic, which was to consist of a grid of rectangular frames, deformed by the shape of the circular section forming the field in front of the monument. In November, a design of a low wall faced with granite blocks to form

the monument’s pandanus was drawn up. An undated planting plan for the greenery was probably created between these dates – a grass strip lining the circular section of the square, a low shrub cordon in front, to the sides and at the head, and a row of low trees behind

the monument. This park layout replaced the 1922 park layout of Leopolda Baťka Square.

 

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