In the 1930s, as Volman planned on building a representative residential villa befitting of the owner of a successful machine-tool company, functionalism was the reigning architectural style in Czechoslovakia. At the time, the country was still grappling with a decades-long housing shortage. The crisis had been exacerbated by World War I, when resources that could have been used for building homes were diverted to the war effort. The housing shortage assumed critical importance after 1929 and the Great Depression.
The antecedents that informed the villa’s design had begun nearly two decades earlier with the Bauhaus school in Dessau, Germany. The overriding impetus had been to simplify architectural design to the point where a structure’s aesthetic merit could be judged chiefly on its ability to articulate function. This relative austerity appealed to leftist progressives of the era – including the two young architects Volman chose to design his house: Karel Janů and Jiří Štursa.
Socially conscious planners of the era were quick to seize on functionalism’s promise to deliver aesthetically pleasing, high-quality buildings at scale and lower cost. After all, in theory, stripping a building of unnecessary ornamental details and elaborate facades would free up capital that could be used for building more houses and employing better materials. Moreover, the daring stylistic innovations, like flat roofs and open-plan living spaces, lent themselves naturally to the high-volume, pre-fab construction techniques that were then being developed.
For wealthy home-buyers like Volman, functionalism offered the opportunity both to acknowledge this social imperative and build eye-catching estates for themselves that met new, emerging standards for style and beauty.
The Vila Volman is true to its functionalist roots. The house bears an uncanny resemblance to the Villa Stein de-Monzie, a modernist standard-bearer the Swiss-French architect Le Corbusier designed for the brother and sister-in-law of writer Gertrude Stein near Paris in the mid-1920s. Corbu conceived of the villa just as he was formulating the tenets that for him would define the very notion of modern architecture. The resemblance wasn’t coincidental. Both Janů and Štursa admired Corbu and enthusiastically applied his principles to their own designs.
Corbu’s influence is evident from first glance: the villa’s overall horizontal orientation; thin strip of windows running across the second level; façade that functions independently of the house’s internal structure; garden setting (here overlooking the Elbe River toward the back of the house); and rooftop terrace. Inside, in Corbu fashion, the interior unfolds freely, aided by giant support pillars. These replaced the task of normal load-bearing – sight-blocking – walls. The result is an airy, oversized ground-floor living and dining room, warmed by sunlight streaming through a long bank of windows on the house’s southern side. This space functioned as both a representative room where Volman could entertain clients and recreation room for dinnertime and after-dinner amusement. The room’s sheer size was ground-breaking.
As with the Villa Stein, the actual living space was confined to the upper levels, where Volman and his daughter, Luďa, maintained their bedrooms and bathrooms, as well as guest room and study. The rooftop space, the “Belvedere,” afforded pretty views over the river and surrounding countryside and space for a Corbu-inspired rooftop garden.
What separates and elevates the Vila Volman is the way the house’s design subtly evokes then-fashionable aesthetic trends, drawing on cubism, constructivism and surrealism. By the 1930s, the use of expensive stone and marble, and elaborate wood-grains and paneling – promoted by architects like Adolf Loos and showcased in villas like Mies van der Rohe’s Tugendhat Villa in Brno – had already become de rigeur in Czechoslovakia’s mansions. The Volman Villa employed these as well, showcasing high-quality Italian marble, for example, around the ground-floor fireplace and baths
But the design took functionalism a step further, gently suggesting the influence of Czechoslovak artists, photographers and graphic designers who were then in thrall to the Europe-wide avant-garde. The playful colors on the walls, pastel greens and a deep salmon pink, evoke the 1930s and seem pulled straight from the canvases of ground-breaking, surrealist painters like Josef Šíma or Toyen. The angle of the main staircase to the living quarters plays tricks with the eye. Squint and one might be looking at an arty, abstract photograph from the period. The villa’s overall shape resembles a luxury ocean-liner, a cherished object for Czech modernists.
Adam Štěch, an architectural researcher, cites the influence of the Czech writer and critic Karel Teige. Teige himself was a strong proponent of orthodox functionalism, what he called “scientific functionalism,” but is better known in the collective imagination for his eye-catching graphic design and collage art. Teige’s graphic work typically juxtaposes geometric shapes and lines with subtly sensualized photographic images that appear able to penetrate the subconscious mind.
Štěch says Teige’s work encouraged the architects to introduce a psychological aspect, an “emotional functionalism” to the design. “There’s a visual joy to the villa,” he says, pointing to details like the playful circles carved into the main stairway bannisters and the unusual, organic angles formed by the ground-floor walls. Stare long enough at the external staircase at the front of the house – particularly the striking way in which the horizontal and diagonal lines intersect – and it could easily feature on one of Teige’s arty book covers.
As with any historic structure in this part of Europe, the architecture is inseparable from the human story. The year the house was finished, in 1939, Nazi Germany invaded and occupied Czechoslovakia. Volkman’s machine-tool company proved invaluable to the German war effort, though in fairness Volman himself was not a Nazi sympathizer. Volman, his daughter and son-in-law, Jiří Růžek, were able to remain in the house. Volman died in 1943.
The end of World War II promised a new chapter for the villa, but those hopes were dashed by the Beneš decrees of 1945 that placed Volman’s company under state ownership. The final nail came in February 1948 with a coup that brought the communists to power. In the aftermath, Luďa and her husband chose to emigrate. Luďa succeeded; Růžek was arrested and imprisoned. The two would stay separated until 1968, when Růžek was finally permitted to leave. Luďa passed away in 1982, while Růžek lived until 2010.
Volman’s young architects went on to further their own careers under communism, though were not completely untouched by the tragic absurdity of the times. In the 1950s, Štursa designed the plinth in Prague’s Letná Park to hold a grotesquely oversized statue of Soviet dictator Josef Stalin that stood there from 1955 to 1962. The statue was eventually demolished in the wake of a de-Stalinization campaign then underway in the Soviet Union.
During the communist period, the Vila Volman functioned as a kindergarten but fell into neglect in the 1990s, after the 1989 Velvet Revolution. The house was painstakingly renovated by the Prague architectural studio TaK, led by architect Marek Tichý. It reopened to the public as a cultural center and tourist attraction in 2022. Enthusiasts can also arrange an overnight stay (www.vilavolman.cz).
Did you like the story and want to add your own experiences? Or maybe help me to correct something I didn’t get right? Write me at bakermark@fastmail.fm.
(In April 2020, Kinfolk published an article I wrote on early-modern architect Adolf Loos and his work designing apartment interiors in the Czech city of Pilsen. Click here to find a link to the Kinfolk article. Or click here to read an insane story of what happened in the apartment that Loos designed during the last days of World War II.)
