Wastewater Pumping Station

Josef Gočár’s probably implemented project for a wastewater pumping station in Hradec Králové dates back to 1940. It was a design of three façades: the front and two side façades. The front façade was broken by five large windows, the right side façade by a double-leaf entrance door, and there was another large window in the overdoor space. The entrance was raised by four low steps and protected by a slightly projecting awning (29cm high and approx. 50cm deep) above the door. The building had a flat roof, the façades were closed by an approx. 40–50cm overhanging crown cornice and stood on a 60cm high plinth probably made of stone. The exterior was made of unplastered bricks. The station was to be built on a plan of 17,7 × 7,55m;

the dimensions including the projecting crown cornice were 18,75 × 8,6m.

 

From a survey of wastewater pumping stations built during WWII, the station on the premises of the Škodawerke diesel engine factory in Plotiště nad Labem, dating from 1941, seems the most probable, with a station for pumping river (not sewage) water with an original dimension of 18.7 × 10m.

 

The eventual location of the wastewater pumping station, for which Gočár proposed an exterior design in 1940, requires detailed research into both the wartime construction in the industrial areas of Hradec Králové and a survey of possible in situ buildings to determine whether and how the design was implemented. We can infer that Gočár tried to maintain the element of unplastered masonry in Hradec Králové even in the case of small, industrial contracts for corporate builders. He thought it was a suitable look for industrial buildings, which he first used in the Winternitzl brothers’ mills in Pardubice, and he also considered unplastered brick to be

a characteristic building element in the tradition of Hradec Králové. 

LZL