The Republic Salon

Trail Starts Here: Švehlova 633
First object: Mr and Mrs Liska’s Residential House
Oldřich Liska, 1923
Public transport: Muzeum (TROLEJBUS 3, 4, 7; BUS 11, 12, 13, 16, 17)
Adalbertinum (TROLEJBUS 2, 6, 21, 27; BUS 5, 11, 14, 15, 16, 18, 19, 23)
GPS: 50.2110461, 15.8263239, stáhnout GPX nebo KML
Lenght of trail: 1,2 KM, 15 min
8

This trail begins at Svobody Square and leads along Švehlova Street. On the right side, there are two tenement houses designed by Oldřich Liska – the architect’s own house and the house of Josef Nevyhoštěný, a major furniture manufacturer. Next, you can see the pre-war bakery building with remarkable concavely curved decorative fields designed by Bohumil Waigant. On the corner of Masarykovo náměstí Square and Švehlova Street, there is the large Trade House designed by Vladimír Fultner. The next stop is the cooperative development project designed by Oldřich Liska just after 1920, which continues from Masarykovo náměstí Square to Šafaříkova Street. On the southwest front of Masarykovo náměstí Square, there are three more houses with triangular gables, all designed by Oldřich Ulrich Liska just before WWI. They are examples of varying tastes of the owners, from traditional to Cubist features. At the corner of Masarykovo náměstí Square and Čelakovského and K. H. Máchy Streets, three are three remarkable houses: the Anglobanka Bank with a plastic, decorative façade designed by Josef Gočár, the tenement house with a façade designed by Pavel Janák, and the corner house for emergency housing designed by Jindřich Henry Freiwald. The shortage of flats and the influx of workers to Hradec Králové after 1920 resulted in the development on the northern front of Klumparova Street – houses for the employees of Škoda Works with Cubist façades, designed by the company architect, Antonín Holub. In the newer Ulrichovo náměstí Square designed by Josef Gočár, the concept of which was pushed through by Mayor František Ulrich despite the outcome of the competition that had no winner, there are large office buildings: Rudolf Steinský-Sehnoutka’s palace designed by Otakar Novotný in the modernized style of mannerist northern Italian palaces, the Directorate of State Railways with gallery halls (designed by Josef Gočár) with large decorative stained glass by Josef Kaplický in the lobby, and four tower buildings enclosing the square – the Adriatica di Sicurtá Palace, the Škoda Works headquarters, Mr Čerych’s house, and the Phoenix Insurance Company. Then the trail leads to the congregational house of the Czechoslovak Hussite Church bearing the name of priest Ambrož, designed by Josef Gočár and his colleague Josef Havlíček. The house was part of the development project on the right bank of the Elbe River. The project was also supposed to include a theatre, a Sokol gym, and a Catholic church, but none of these three buildings was ever built. Opposite the congregational house, there is Karel Löwenbach’s generous tenement house, designed by a prominent student and collaborator of Adolf Loos, architect Heinrich Kulka, on his flight to Austria. The Republic Salon trail takes in the diversity of interwar architecture in Hradec Králové and the most famous architects whose projects were built in the city between the wars.