Arcitecture of Socialist Realism in Czechoslovakia

ARCHITECTURAL HISTORY THESIS A look at Socialist Realism in Czechoslovakian Architecture

Architectural and Urbanistic principles as demostrated in Ostrava’s Poruba, with a side step to Havířov PS

Foreword: I would like to thank the following people, Otakar Máčel, for patience and inspiration, Martin Strakoš for his time in explaining the history of Poruba. I would like to thank the staff of Prague’s National Technical Library in Prague for their patience and helpfulness.

PS

Table of Contents Critique of sources and literature 5 Introduction 7 Socialist Realism in Soviet Union 9 Political and Architectural Situation in Czechoslovakia

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Social realistic method 13 Socialist Realism: Early years 17 Brief history of Ostrava 19 Nová (New) Ostrava 21 Decoration, symbolism and layout 25 A side step to Havířov

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Later stages of Poruba’s architectonic elaboration

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Looking back: Then and now 33 Poruba today 37 Bibliography 38 Images 39

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Critique of sources and literature During the writing of this paper, I have used both primary sources and later literature written on the subject. Åman’s book “Architecture and Ideology in Eastern Europe during the Stalin Era” was at first used in order to get a sense of general historical and political background of this architectural era, and the book gives a good general overview of people’s democracies and their particular situation in adopting the new architectural doctrine. However, the case studies in the book focus on the more famous and monumental projects (Palace of Culture in Warsaw or Stalinallee in Berlin) or highly symbolic, such as Stalin’s Monument on Letná mountain in Prague, which, intriguing as it is, was not a subject of this study.

Curtis’s book, “Modern architecture since 1900” offers some very broad background of totalitarian architectures of the 1930s, but documents the rise and fall of Soviet avant-garde through the 1920s, and does mention the word “Socialist Realism” once or twice and devotes about three paragraphs in total to Czechoslovakian Modern movement. A much more useful source for this is Karel Teige’s 1947 publication “Modern Architecture in Czechoslovakia”, though admittedly Teige was a dogmatic, functionalist, so his conclusions must be taken with a grain of salt. These were publications that I used in the preparatory phase, and could be found within TU Delft’s library.

I went to look for more specific information about Czechoslovakian Socialist Realism in Prague’s National Technical library. Here, there were plenty of possible sources, but due to time constrains, I concentrated my efforts to finding relevant articles within “Architektura ČSR”, which at the time was the main architectural magazine in the country. This provided a wealth of contemporary information, not only about the architectural rhetoric, but also highlighting important projects, architects, Soviet precedents, technological advances and urbanistic plans. Though other magazines, such as “Tvorba” also dealt with architecture of the time, and “Sovětská Architektura” was a journal published specifically to introduce Soviet precedents into Czecholsovakian architectural practice, I had not had the time to look into those.

Another source dealing with Socialist Realism is Karel Honzík’s “Architektura Vsem” from 1956, in which he introduces the importance of Socialist architecture and critiques the formalist, cosmopolitan architecture of the West. This book, however, written as the dogma of Socialist Realism in Architecture was losing its footing, and already mentions some of the critiques voiced about redundant elements and unnecessary decorations in architecture. Overall, the documents from this time, from about 1948-mid1950s contain overblown rhetoric and rather bombastic style, though the information

they present; in facts, figures, drawings and plans remains valid, even if only as a representation of the times. Otakar Máčel’s article from 1975 “De bouwstijl van russische proletariat…” gives a good overview of the situation in interwar Soviet Union and positions the architecture in the political and economic context of the time and served effectively in Subsequent publications on Socialist Realism in Czecholslovakia remain scarce, and even in books about history of architecture, it is glossed over quite quickly. The beginning of re-imerging interest began in the 1980s, with the growing interest in postmodernism and new cultural policies from Soviet Union (perestroika and glasnost), some debate on Socialist Realism had sprung up. This is mainly seen in the bi-yearly publication “Architecture and Society” which presents Eastern block’s architecture with some essays, one of which present Socialist Realism as a logical step in Soviet Architecture, which withered with the arrival of panel housing developed in the 1950s. A small article in Československý Architeckt from 1986 recounts international (read Soviet Bloc) seminar on Socialist Realism and is very cautious in its tone.

Socialist Realism, even after the dismantling of communist regimes in 1989 had remained a sensitive topic in former people’s democracies. In 2002, a symposium and an exhibition was hosted by Academy of Arts, Architecture and Design (Vysoká škola umělecko-průmyslová) in Prague which created quite a controversy. Several historians and academics were then asked to write down their opinions on the proceeding, these were subsequently published in the Czech magazine Architekt in 2003.

Since then, Socialist Realism seems to have at least been accepted as a historical and physical fact, with the National Heritage Institute publishing two books, a slim volume “Architektura socialistického realismu v severozápadních Čechách” (Architecture of Socialist Realism in North-western Bohemia) written by Lubomír Zeman in 2008 which, looks at smaller town realized around mid-1950s in a different region of the country, but still provides an interesting take on the background of Socialist Realism In architecture. Finally a 2010 book by Martin Strakoš: “Nová Ostrava a její satelity: Kapitoly z dějin architektury 30.-50. let 20. století” provides a detailed account of the history of residential expansion of Ostrava, and presents Poruba (or as it was called in the 1950s Nová Ostrava) as a culmination of previous efforts and Communist ideology and propaganda.

There are no newer literature studies (as far as I could find) regarding Poruba, and the archives relating to Poruba’s building remain unsorted and are not open to general public. Hopefully, in the future, more studies will be done to reassess the place of Socialist Realist architecture and urbanism in former Czechoslovakia.

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Fig 1. Collective house at Litvínov, E. Linhart – V. Hilský, project from 1947 (Teige, 1947)

Fig 2. Cultural Centre in Bělský Les, Ostrava – J. Kroha, 1960 (own photograph)

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Socialist Realism in Czechoslovakian Architecture

Architectural and Urbanistic principles as demostrated in Ostrava’s Poruba, with a side step to Havířov Peter Smisek, 1368710

Introduction This essay will discuss and trace the development of Socialist Realism in Architecture In Czechoslovakia, with Poruba, a neighbourhood in the former mining and (still) steelmaking city of Ostrava, Czech Republic, as a case study and a culmination of this architectural paradigm. I shall mainly focus on the period 1948-1958, a time in which the doctrine of Socialist Realism was the guiding principle of all artistic output in Czechoslovakia, which naturally included architecture and urbanism. Since the topic was very new to me and the available material didn’t allow me to go in sufficient depth, this essay will remain rather broad, and single out key concepts of Socialist Realism, outline its history in Czechoslovakia, as well as demonstrate how Poruba became its largest (certainly in terms of size and rhetoric) achievement, and briefly try to provide the different evaluations of Socialist Realism in Czechoslovakian architecture, both during the Communist regime, as well as in more recent times.

Socialist Realism occupies a curious position in the architectural history of the country, which has, in the interwar years, been widely seen as one of the countries to embrace modernism (referred to as functionalism in Czechoslovakian literature). Though the prominent Slovenian architect Jože Plečnik carried out the reconstruction of the Prague Castle (1921-1935) during the First Czechoslovak Republic and built a magnificent brick church in Prague’s Vinohrady district in his traditional and unique neoclassicistic style, these are more an exception to the rule. There have been a notable examples of new towns or town districts built along modernist principles, most notably Zlín (Le Corbusier was invited as a consultant) and other towns by the Baťa Company, a more traditionalist approach to urban planning has still been retained in Dejvice extension of Prague, which has been planned in the 1920s and built mostly in an art-deco style architecture, in a fairly traditional and monumental urban plan. However, the young republic seems to have found its architectural expression in modernism.

initiated in this period, from collective housing in Litvínov (Fig 1.) designed in 1946 before the adoption of the Socialist Realism dogma and the building itself was finally finished in 1957, or even a housing estate in Ostrava called Vzorné Sídliště, which was meant as an exemplary case of post-war reconstruction and was began in 1947.

However, even in the years preceding the Communist rule, and even as early as 1945 some architects and critics were calling for a re-evaluation of functionalist architecture, to a one perhaps more suited for “national expression” or “synthesis of art” (Karel Honzík) or in the case of the architect Jiří Kroha, a subtle insinuation that perhaps a return to a more traditional, folksy styling of architecture was inevitable.

This rhetoric had become more overt, especially after February 1948 when the Communist party had staged a coup and took control of all political power. All projects initiated after this date were carried out in the new official style of Socialist Realism, while the already running projects were either quietly finished or changed. The same was true for projects began during the Socialist realism phase, whose architectural expression was changed to modernism in the late fifties, or whose subsequent publication was minimal.

Whilst the public in Czech Republic and Slovakia hasn’t completely come to terms with their respective past vis-à-vis Communism, and many remember these times either with blind nostalgia or equally blind rejection, The buildings and towns of the era district still stand as it was built, giving us the opportunity to trace their history.

After the end of the Second World War in 1945, Czechoslovakia’s transformation from a democracy into a communist, Stalin-style dictatorship was not completely inevitable, and this was manifest in architecture and architectural discourse in the years 1945-1948. Several prestigious modernist projects were 7

3, 4 Fig 3. ARCOS Office competition, Formin, 1924(Åman, 1992, p. 52) Fig 4. ARCOS Office competition, Vesnin brothers, 1924 (Åman, 1992, p. 52)

5,6 Fig 5. Tribune for Lenin, El Lissitzky, 1920 (Public domain) Fig 6. Lenin’s Mausoleum in Moscow, Shchusev, 1924 (own photograph)

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Socialist Realism in Soviet Union Although Soviet Architecture of the 1920s is internationally renowned for new architectural concepts (suprematism and constructivism), there has always been a group of architects devoted to classicim and more traditional approach to architecture though for propaganda reasons, the fashioning of a new, classless society was mainly represented by disavowing any traditionalist streaks in artistic expression. Even if Modernist/Constructivist paradigm was favoured in the Societ Union during the twenties, this did not mean that the classicists were completely inactive or had converted to Modernism.

Indeed, even in 1924, the architect Formin had submitted a classicist scheme to the ARCOS office competition, whereas the Vesnin brothers submitted a Constructivist Design (Fig 3.

-4.).

The situation started changing in the late 1920s and even Lenin’s death in 1924 revealed classical and traditionalist tendencies in Soviet rchitecture. If the El Lissitsky’s 1920 tribune for Lenin was still a constructivist fantasy (Fig. 5), Lenin’s mausoleum (Fig 6.), designed by A. Shchusev was built in a stripped down classical style to fit the monumental Red Square in Moscow, which, if one is to believe Soviet architectural historians “both architects and the people [saw] as a real revelation” (Bilinkin, 1985/1986, p. 171). Later developments were even less favourable for the modernists. With the subsequent award of the first prize to Boris Iofan’s project for the palace of the Soviets in 1932, for his classically inspired and ornamental “wedding-cake” design, the tides have finally turned in favour of the classicists.

cussed in the context of architecture later), and not be a worldwide, universal in nature. While the return to the formal language of the Tsars might seem paradoxical, we must remember that even Charles Fourier’s collective utopia of Phalanastère was essentially a palace akin to the absolutist monarch’s residence at Versailles. The form, therefore, does not need to follow the symbolic function. Instead, the luxury, or rather, the representation thereof, reserved for the “oppressor” is now available to the common man.

And lastly, one of the reasons for turning to a more traditional way of building was also practical. The Soviet Union, while the biggest and one of the most resource-rich countries in the world, was still technologically behind on the rest of Europe, and could not always provide raw materials, suitable technology or skilled enough labour force to execute a large amount of modernist plans. Therefore, many foreign modern architects came home disappointed after their stint in Soviet Union, and a few were converted to Socialist Realism, the highest profile architect who had been convinced to join the ranks of Socialist Realists being Hannes Hannes Meyer, formerly radical modernist and director of Bauhaus from 1928-1930.

Socialist Realism, however, wasn’t a term solely used for architecture, but was a blanket term that governed all artistic output in the Soviet Union. Its aim was to realistically portray the life of the proletariat as they are heading towards a brighter socialist future. In visual arts, this translated to realistic/figurative painting or statues of labourers, factory workers or farmers (on collective farms, naturally), being engaged in a heroic, yet everyday activities that were to lead the people toward a better future under Communism. The state officials argued that abstraction was a “self-indulgent filter” that placed the artist above the common man, who could no longer discern any message that the artist was trying to convey. The term itself has been first coined at writer’s congress in 1934, and by 1937, it had been confirmed (though the practice of building along more traditional lines was already in place) as the new socialist way of building by the architects’ congress in Moscow.

Furthermore, the officials argued that art needed to develop the best of existing, progressive traditions (this will be dis9

Fig 7. Low cost housing estate in PragueBřevnov built in 1936, project by V. Hilský, R. Jasenský, F. Jech, K. Koželka (Teige, 1947)

Fig 8. Miner’s housing estate in Ostrava Poruba, 1946-1948 (own photograph)

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Political and Architectural Situation in Czechoslovakia Between the two world wars, Czechoslovakia enjoyed a period of democracy and relative stability, and its architects and critics were involved in the modern movement, which not only allowed indigenous pieces of architecture to be built, but also meant that now well-respected masters the movement either built in the country (Mies van der Rohe’s Villa Tugendhat in 1930) or in the case of Le Corbusier, who has been invited to consult on the building of a modern industrial town of Zlín. But the domestic scene was incebidly varied (one could almost say splintered) as well, producing exemplary works in Prague, Brno and elsewhere in the republic. As was quite common among the modernist architects, mane were left-leanings and some were communists, though only a few joined the party, and many, the critic Karel Teige among them, were sceptical of socialist realism.

famous assertion: “modern architecture is principally international and universal in character” (Teige, 1947, p. 6) to mean that this architecture was essentially rootless and intellectually abstract in character. Even the pleas of the modernists, such as “architecture or revolution” (Le Corbusier, 1931, p. 289) could be and were interpreted as yet another way of the bourgeoisie trying to sate the proletariat, while cementing its own position. In addition, functionalist architecture was regarded as an effort to cheapen the worker’s dweling and provide only the so-called “Existenzminimum”. What was once a lofty goal, was now frowned upon and viewed with suspicion as yet another way to oppress the proletariat. The interwar architectural avant-garde and its efforts were apologetically regarded as misguided, though mostly well intentioned, and parts of modernist functional architectonic research were regarded as useful and appropriated.

After World War II, there was a hope that the country could be rebuilt and continue developing architecturally along modernist principles, but all of that changed after February 1948. Not only has the country become fully controlled by the Communist Party by that point in time, but a Soviet style government has been established, with close ties to Moscow.

The Soviet Union, through its support of Communist parties abroad, but also because of its crucial role on the Eastern Front, liberating most of the Eastern Bloc countries from Nazi Occupation, had become an example of all that was progressive and good, in all areas of life.

The Unie Architektů ČSR (Union of Architects of Czechoslovakian Republic) established in 1947, soon became the only legal professional body representing all of the architects in the republic. The announcement also points at collectivisation of architectural work, where architects would be employed in “National studios” and work collectively on plans for rebuilding the country. This new structure of state run and controlled architectural studios became instrumental in propagating any political and architectural agenda that the state had set, as there was direct control of all the designs. The announcement also implied that they should utilise the best of “logic and wisdom of past vernacular building” and to “use the previously unused experience and instincts of labourers and craftsmen” (Ústřední akční výbor architektů ČSR 1948, p. 261).

The new architecture had to be “national in form” and “social in its content” (Åman, 1992, p. 50). The regime considered architecture as a “carrier of ideas” that needed to be “a real reflection of people’s happy lives” (Belluš, 1951, p. 12). In the meantime, the inertwar architectural discourse and production was being attacked on all sides, either using and the language of its main protagonists, such as Karel Teige’s 11

Fig 9. Examples of Czech Reinassance architecture. Notice the forms of gables, sgrafitto decoration, occasional use of classical elements in the façade. From book Pamět Měst (Odeon, 1975) from right to left, top to bottom: Lytomy š l (p.

182), Mikulov (p. 202), Prachatice (p. 297), Litoměřice (p.173), Pardubice (p.250), Kutná Hora (p.156)

Fig 10. Examples of Czech Neo-Renaissance architecture. Ballustrades lining the roof (which seem to be rarer in Reinaissance) are important elements. From book Pamět Měst (Odeon, 1975), Right: Prague, National Theatre (p.284), Left: Pardubice, Town Hall (p.255)

Fig 11. Historical appliqués form Tábor on a sorela housing block (Åman, 1992, p.

106)

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Social realistic method Socialist Realism in architecture, often shortened to “sorela” in Czech has its roots in the classical theorem of architecture: utility (“účelnosť”), firmness (as related to efficient use of materials “hospodárnosť”) and beauty (“krása”) (Belluš, 1951, p. 9) which all quite precisely into the Vitruvian architectural paradigm. In fact, Åman notes that the most copies of Vitruvius and Palladio classical treatises on architecture in the world were sold in 1950s Poland, another people’s republic whose architectural orders on Socialist Realism came from the Soviet Union. This is contrary to the strict functionalist theory which asserts that form follows function, with beauty either left out altogether, or being simply a result of the two.

A large part of debate about Socialist Realism was the finding of a suitable national expression. These were tied to progressive social movements and periods within history (as supported by Marxist view of history). These would be moments of social change in which the formerly oppressed classes found new means to express and establish themselves on the political scene. Periods of history which were dubbed “regressive” were those in which the ruling classes were cementing their position at the expense of those not in power.

The policies of Socialist Realism was adopted in whole of Soviet Bloc, and each of the people’s democracies, had to find their own appropriate national form which tied in with progressive traditions of the past. So while the Czech Baroque could be not an example for architects in Czechoslovakia due to its associations with feudalism and loss of Czech independence and , Russian Baroque, which coincided with Russian consolidation as a European power and Enlightenment, was an acceptable point of reference to Soviet architects.

Unlike its neighbours, Czechoslovakian architectural discourse was really dominated by strands of modernist during the interbellum, so there was no easy national form to look for in the very recent past. Instead, vernacular architecture was regarded as an example of building that was by the people and for the people, similarly to other people’s republics. In addition, the Czech Hussite movement (essentially a rebellion against the Catholic religious dogma) in 1400s was appropriated and reinterpreted by the Communist regime as a protoproletariat movement against the ruling classes, so therefore early Czech Renaissance architecture was brought forward as a suitable architectural vocabulary.

This was helped by the fact that the Hussites had actually founded the fortified town of Tábor, and therefore real modes of architectural expression could be derived from this example. Even in later publication dealing with architectural

history of Czech cities, Tábor is hailed as “the first place in the world where a larger scale society was being created, removing the privileges of the exploiters” (Svatoň, 1975, p. 325). The period from 1420 (founding of Tábor) to 1620-21 was generally regarded as the period of growth and prosperity for the town, The subsequent decline in commerce and population during the Baroque years (architecturally speaking) was only countered by the Industrial revolution in the Czech lands, which ran parallel with the Czech National Revival. Sadly, “the dismantling of Tábor’s fortifications could not be halted by the progressive forces, organizing themselves during the national revival, later coupled with the developing proletariat movement, breathing life into the glorious Hussite tradition” (Svatoň, 1975, p. 330). Thus the Socialist Realism sought to build upon these earlier, so-called “progressive” traditions, the vernacular, the Renaissance and the National Revival of the mid-19th century (which was conveniently Neo-Renaissance) (Fig 9-10.). In addition, architects were also required to “acknowledge the value of cultural heritage of… the world” (Belluš, 1951, p. 19), referring to world’s classical tadition.

However, we must not forget the practical side of things: the whole re-building effort was nationalized, centralised, standardized and rationalised, with standard types and layouts of building blocks being set, and the amount of new dwelling units built centrally determined, the architects only having to arrange the building blocks in suitable urban plan, and decorate the buildings according to the local/regional progressive tradition and/or appliques that would express the progressive and benevolent nature of the new society brought on by the ruling party. It was the architect’s job to create a suitable façade-expression. In this way, a standardized building could be dressed up (or sometimes stories were added to it), creating a potentially large pool of seeming variation.

There is, however, yet another point of reference for the architects; the domesticated “burgher’s empire style, which is the product of the revolutionary bourgeouise of the 18th century”, whose main qualities are again a more gentle plasticity, treatment and decoration of surfaces with minimal means of colour and prefabricated ornaments; the economy of these buildings and the compositional methods employed were once again given to architects as an example in trying to establish usable forms and techniques under sorela. This is re-iterated in a later article: “The main source of knowledge in applying ornament in the manner of our tradition is given to us in the appearance of our little towns, which is given by surface detail, slightly undulating, softness, the charm of gentleness, which is disturbed by high plasticity” (Benešová, 1955, p. 217). The appended (reference) image is once again a humble, small-town structure (Fig 12.). The mixture of these architectural languages, replete with keystones, gables, sgraffito decorations, a tripartite division would dominate the facades of sorela buildings, ballustrades, reliefs of classical 13

Fig 12. Ananymous small town buildings provided as an example to architects to help them find new national expression Left and Middle: (Honzík, 1954, p.87), Right: (Benešová, 1955, p. 217)

Fig 13. Façade designs for a standard T16 apartment block by various architects (Schránil, 1955, pp. 208-214)

Fig 14. Characteristics of Socialist Realism Urbanism (Jutten, 2004, p.142)

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elements would come to dominate the expression of Socialist Realist elevation designs (Fig 13.).

Similar ideological shift took place within the discipline of urbanism too. The urban plans took on an important role in the political and ideological rhetoric of the regime. Poruba’s masterplanner, V. Meduna, quotes the Soviet Architect Mordvinov “the social importance of architecture is enormous. No other art can equal architecture in immediacy, continuity and constant presence on man… A beautiful city… evokes feelings of pride and patriotism. An ugly city creates in its citizens indifference” (Meduna, 1951, p. 262). The modernist city of towers in a park were dismissed as “cosmopolitan” and as “utopian and unrealistic” (Meduna, 1951, p. 262), with the new socialist architect favouring the “real and realistic” (Belluš, 1951, p. 17). An urban leitmotif in all Social Realist plans is the monumental axis, and porous superblocks. There is a clear hierarchy of spaces, with the monumental axis connecting symbolic/important public buildings, while the entrances into the city/city quarter are ideally marked by monumental arches.

The difference between a traditional urban plan and one from Social Realism is the functional openness and morphological porosity of all the space between buildings. Wheras in the traditional urban block, the block courtyards are collective and only reserved for the inhabitants of the said block, or the land is actually privately owned by the persons who own the ground floor flats. In the case of Socialist Realistic urbanism, the inner courtyards (I am using the word rather liberally, as the space is rather flowing throughout) are treated as small, collective parks, with parking, playgrounds and laundry lines.

The urbanism is therefore a hybrid of the two forms: the city is treated as an artistic entity with a definite urban hierarchy (classicism), in which there is plenty of open, collective flowing green space (modernism).

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Fig 15. Interior rendering of Kroha’s 1948 Agricultural expo Pavilion (Honzík 1948, p. 296)

Fig 16. Project for a new Architecture building at Brno Technical Univeristy, 1950, J. Kroha, (Kroha, 1950, p. 2)

Fig 17. Interior of the Aula of the new Architecture building at Brno Technical Univeristy, 1950, J. Kroha, (Kroha, 1950, p. 8)

Fig 18. Medical Centre at Bělský Les Estate, Kroha, 1953-1954 (Strakoš, 2010, p. 131)

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Socialist Realism: Early years In the 1920s and 1930s, a great number of modern architects regarded themselves as socialist and strove not only to improve the living conditions for the working man, but to create new ways of living in a modern, more egalitarian society. The more radical ones have naturally been drawn by the architectonic developments in the Soviet Union, the first Communist state. As we have seen, by the mid-1930s, the artistic situation in the Soviet Union had experienced a radical shift in its focus from radical new form to the folksy, familiar and traditionalist. One should keep in mind that even Hannes Meyer had accepted and embraced the official Soviet rhetoric of national form and socialist content as the inevitable evolution of Marxist architecture and even toured Europe (including Czechoslovakia) propagating the new approach to architecture.

In Czechoslovakia, the architect Jiří Kroha had been an early proponent of this architecture. He started out as a Cubist and by 1930s, he had built a modernist villa for himself in Brno which was even featured in Karel Teige’s 1947 publication on Czechoslovakian modernism. However, after the liberation of Czechoslovakia and well before the Communist takeover, we see him advocating a return to a less radical, more traditional form for the reconstruction of the country, no doubt influenced by his party affiliation (he was a communist), but also his interest in Soviet architecture. When the Communist takeover came in Czechoslovakia, he had produced a series of projects that established him as the leading Socialist Realist among the country’s architects. These projects show a steady progression from a kind of respectable, half-modernist architecture to more orthodox forms of Socialist Realism.

Similarly, Kroha’s design from 1950 for the School of Architecture and Building Engineering (Fig 16.) in Brno tries to combine the classicism of Socialist Realism with modernist/functionalistic form. The references here are more overt than in his earlier project. The building is symmetrical, but composed of abstract volumes, overlaid which a rectangular grid of strip windows. The building has a stripped-down, very abstract rectangular portico, which is supported by two Corinthian (or perhaps composite?) columns, which support a figurative set of figures on top of it. The half sunken basement’s facade is rusticated. The interior renders show a strange mixture of traditionalistic elements and devices (symmetry, central perspective) as well as decorative touches, while also featuring wide expanses of glass, showing off of the quite expressive constructive portals. There seems to be very little craftsmanship or craftsman detailing. Only the render of the school’s auditorium (Fig 17.) shows a slightly more decorative approach, with figurative reliefs adorning the sides of the space, and the square columns featuring an abstracted version of a capitol.

While Kroha fully accepts and adopts the official state rhetoric, these early transitional works betray the influence of supposedly rootless and cosmopolitan modernism.

Kroha’s later work (from 1950s onward) on the Vzorné Sídliště (Fig 2. and Fig 18.) in Ostrava show a marked shift toward a more traditionally articulated architecture, with strong emphasis on introducing fragments of historicising details and appliques, as well as introducing more traditional form to the buildings themselves (pitched roofs, “punctured” windows) to the already existing themes of axiality and symmetry in his work. This style has become a norm in later sorela buildings.

Jiří Kroha’s position was cemented after he was made “narodní umělec” (national artist), for his pavilion in the 1948 Agricultural expo in Prague. The pavilion strikes a rather odd note, and its form as well as detailing is more reminiscent of “people’s detailing” modernism (Fig 15.), such as was later seen in the 1950s festival of Britain, rather than the strictly academic Socialist Realism that would be realized in Ostrava a few years later. The building features a pitched roof and is constructed in wood, but it still lacks any overt references to classicism or vernacular architecture. In fact, the building does have factory windows, a large neutral space for the exhibition. This has been hailed as an example of Czechoslovak Socialist Realism, an example other architects should follow by pro-sorela critic Karel Honzík. Unlike other architects, which have been forced to work in Stavoprojekt, Kroha was able to retain his own practice, no doubt due to his position as a national artist, but also his early and active promotion of the new architecture.

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Fig 19. Ostrava in Czechoslovakia (public domain)

Fig 20. Post-war modernist plans for Ostrava, Rebuilding of the centre by O. Olár, 1945 (Strakoš, 2010, p. 110) and plans for Vzorné Sídliště/ Bělský Les Estate, A. Friedlová (Strakoš, 2010, p. 129)

Fig 21. Modernist part of Vzorné Sídliště/ Bělský Les Estate in july 2012 (own photograph)

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Brief history of Ostrava The city of Ostrava lies in the north east of the historical region of Moravia, on the border of historic region of Silesia.

(Together, the regions of Bohemia, Moravia and Silesia make up Czech Republic). The site of today’s city had been inhabited for at least the past 25 000 years, as supported by archelogical finds on the nearby Lendak hill. Today’s city of Ostrava lies in both Moravia and Silesia, though today’s city core, formerly known as Moravská Ostrava, had an important function as a The settlement obtained city rights before 1279, and the Holy Roman Emperor, Charles IV granted the right to hold an annual, 16 day market in 1362. In the 16th century, the main economic driver in town was textile and fisheries industries, though the town frequently suffered fires (in 1556, almost all the houses on the main square, now Masaryk Square, burned down). In 1625, half the population (500 people) was wiped out as a result of the bubonic plague, and in the subsequent Thirty Years’ War (1618-1648), the Moravian side of the city was Occupied by the Danes from 1625, and the Swedes on the Silesian side from 1642. But even after the war, the town was obliged to pay the former occupants for further 70 years.

In 1763, coal deposits were discovered in the Ostrava region, but systematic mining began only in 1787. The first blast furnace for the production of iron was built in a neighbouring settlement of Vítkovice by the Olomouc bishop in 1824.

The steelworks will eventually end up in the ownership of the Rotschild family. In 1847, the region was connected to railway via a station in Svinov, which facilitated further economic and population growth. The population grew from less than 2000 in 1830 to 13 000 in 1880 . After the creation of independent Czechoslovakia in 1918, Ostrava grew further to become the administrative and economic centre of the region.

However, due to the uncoordinated and unpredictable nature of industrial development, the Moravska Ostrava and neighbouring settlements (for example Vítkovice, and Mariánské Hory) lead to a worrying situation. Not only was has the city become a patchwork of heavy industry and mining which had (and to this day still has) an extremely negative effect on the living conditions in the city, but the mining right underneath and around the city meant that the soil had begun to subside, creating marshes and wetlands. The developments in the city from about 1910 had a garden city-character as advocated

by Ebenezer Howard. In 1924, Moravská Ostrava absorbed the neighbouring settlements of Vitkovice, Mariánské Hory and Přívoz in an effort to create spatially integrated solutions to the problem of housing in relation to industry and environmental problems in the region. The growth of the city took place mostly in the south-western direction away from the central core, as this area lay near open countryside and

woodlands, as well as laying in the opposite direction of prevailing winds (which meant that the air pollution from the factories is less likely to reach it) (Strakoš, 2010, p. 62).

The economic activity hadn’t ceased during WWII, as the city kept supplying and producing raw materials and machinery for Nazi Germany which occupied Czechoslovakia in 1938. Only a modest amount of new dwellings was constructed, mostly in the German Heimatstil, a Nazi approved traditional style in a more or less garden city layout, before the Nazi government had ceased all building activities in face of material scarcity (Strakoš, 2010, pp. 79-81). By the end of the Second World War, the city’s population had grown to to 180 000 inabitants by the end of WWII, and according to statistics, 75% of the city consisted of proletariat/ working class. Only 18% of all dwellings in Ostrava had gas, 4% had central heating and only 46% were connected to city’s sewers.

The first built examples of Socialist Realism in Czechoslovakia were actually monuments erected by the advancing Red Army as the country was being liberated from the Germans (Strakoš, 2010, p. 83), though these had very little real impact on the largescale reconstruction projects being developed by architects in the immediate post-war years, the architect’s plans being driven mostly by a continuation of pre-war modernism.

In the years leading up to the Communist takeover, the rebuilding effort was stipulated by the so called two-years plan (1946-1948), which proposed to build about 125 000 new dwellings throughout Czechoslovakia. Most of these dwellings were built in a very economic/contractor’s manner. There was very little consideration for actual architecture, modernist or socialist realist Actually, up until 1948, the designs for the reconstruction of the city were done in the modernist/functionalist paradigm. The Vzorné Sídliště/Bělský Les on the southern edge of the city was intended to serve as a showcase for a less dispersed and more concentrated type of urbanism had been initiated in 1947, and a few buildings were actually built according to the intended plans, before the Communist takeover in February 1948 had changed the course of architectural work (Fig 20.-21.).

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Fig 22. Map of Ostrava’s Poruba Quarter (Ostrava City Information Centre, 2008), the district numbers written in by Martin Strakoť

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Nová (New) Ostrava: The site of today’s Poruba quarter, or as was intended in the 1950s, Nová Ostrava, lies on a plateau to the west of Ostrava’s historic core. The edge of the plateau to this day includes the remnants of the original historic village of Poruba, complete with a small baroque church, the Wilczk family manor and a few single family homes. Four rows of three storey slabs were built under the auspices of the two year plan along the Delnicka and Porubska street. These buildings, are laid out according to basic modernist principles, but the architecture has been left out, though the aesthetic might look close to what would later be called socialist realism (small windows, pitched roofs), the facades of the buildings are austere, undecorated and utilitarian.

The idea for Nová Ostrava isn’t actually originally one proposed by the new regime. Already in March 1946, Václav Šusta, a geologist, proposed that the city of Ostrava should be relocated, citing examples from Westphalia, where inhabitants abandoned subsiding, polluted settlements. This would mean that the area underneath the centre of Ostrava could be further mined for coal, without any future consequences.

Thought plans were attacked and questioned; the idea for a new city fell on fertile ground. .

However, by 1949, a problem appeared. A regional plan for Ostrava, being prepared by the local Stavoprojekt (the collective architectural studio), led by Vladimír Meduna (a former pupil of Jiří Kroha, the national artist) ran into difficulties, since it was unclear how much of the heavy industry was being moved out of the city into a newly planned industrial complex (Nová Huť Klementa Gottwalda) to the south east of the built up area, and whether mining will be resumed underneath the central core of Ostrava. Nevertheless, the first version of the regional plan was completed in august 1950, by March 1951, the city’s Communist Party committee had appointed a “commission for builing city of Ostrava” and on 30 June 1951, a ban on issuing building permits in Poruba had been put in place.

The plans for the region were drawn up in 1951, and included New Ostrava, a new city for 150 000 people, another new city between Senov and Sumbark for 50 000 inhabitants (named Havířov), expansion of Karvina to 70 000 inhabitants and expansion of Mistek to 40 000 inhabitants. Ostrava was to become the republic’s second biggest city. The whole development was planned to take mere 12 years (i.e. finished by the end of the third five-year-plan in 1963) .

It is equally important to remember that, while there were legitimate reasons for reconstructing the city of Ostrava, or

building more hygienic, healthy dwelling for the proletariat, the ideological stakes were raised as well. In short, the new city was to supplant “the classic land of capitalism, chaotic and ugly, just as capitalism itself” (Alexa & Novotný, 1951, p. 276). The main ideological driver of the project was to build a better city for all than the capitalist system has. In, the developments made and initiated during the pre-communist two years’ plan are criticised.

The workers that have moved to their new dwellings, while satisfied with the overlall comfort and noting that the flats could be slightly larger, have above all reported to the architects to design for them, above all, buildings which are beautiful and the building of Vzorné Sídliště (now renamed to Stalingrad) has been criticised for its modernist layout, in which the standardized dwellings run perpendicular to the roads. On the other hand, socialist urbanism is praised for providing “artistically composed ensembles… with socialist expression in the detail – façade” (Alexa & Novotný, 1951, p. 277). However, at this point in time, the built output of socialist realism consisted mostly of slab buildings (at least as far as the article discussing the wok of Ostrava’s architects showed), that have been decorated with classical motifs, whose proportions mesh very uneasily with the proportions of the building. While some buildings tend to be overly historicizing, other examples display a rather unsuccsessful marriage between functionalism and historical appliques. And while national form is again mentioned, knowledge of “world’s classical masters” (Alexa & Novotný, 1951, p. 282) is also mentioned to be of great importance for the socialist realist architect.

The plan for the city of Nová Ostrava from 1952 consists of three city parts. The core part consisted of a central axis, leading from a planned university on the western end, continuing to the east, where it would eventually terminate near the existing Svinov train station, which would be rebuild in the spirit of the times and would bring the workers to the new industrial estates. The easternmost edge of the plan is bounded by the proposed Danube-Odra canal which had been widened to 120m in this place. The canal was meant to provide a reflective surface, a focal viewing point on the new city; the Moskva river running though the centre of Moscow was cited as a point of reference, as is the Moldau river (Vltava) which flows through the centre of Prague.

To the northern part of Nová Ostrava was attached directly to the central part, while southern part was meant to be built on a lightly lower terrace and was separated from the other built-up area by a small valley, part of which contained the original village of Poruba. Only the central part was worked out in more detail, the others were only roughly zoned out. The goal was clear: to finish the new city centre containing the symbolic main axis first, and add the remaining neighbourhoods later.

By 1955, the first district of the core part of Nová Ostrava (Number 1 had been finished), and by 1958, the second one had been finished, along with a handful loose buildings in the third district.

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Fig 23. Ostrava regional masterplan, Stavoprojekt Ostrava (led by Vladimír Meduna). Yellow: Ostrava city centre. Left side: blue total projected are for Nová Ostrava, red: actually realized according to original plans. Right side: Havířov (Meduna, 1951, p. 261)

Fig 24. Impression of the Hlaní Třída (main axis) of Nová Ostrava (Strakoš, 2010, p. 146)

Fig 25. Masterplan for Nová Ostrava (Strakoš, 2010, p. 159), bird’s eye impression (Strakoš, 2010, p. 158) (area inside red line actually realized according to original plans)

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By this time, however, the architectural debate had changed its course. It began with the death of Stalin on 5 March 1953, followed by the death of the Czechoslovak president Klement Gottwald on 9 March 1953. Initially, this did little to stop the official artistic/architectural policies of Soviet satellite states.

By the end of year 1954, the Soviet leader Nikita Chruschev already voiced his critique against “redundant elements used in architectonic finishes of buildings” and by November 1955, this sentiment was voiced in the Czechoslovak Communist Party newspaper Rudé Právo. Attacks on Socialist Realism were not only being made in Czechoslovakia, but across all eastern block, and grand projects have either been stopped or altered to a more modernist aesthetic The rest of the 3rd district of Poruba, as well as two buildings in the second district (a tower block in Havlíčkovo náměstí, and a slab on the northern side of Alšovo náměstí) were completed in a modernist style, however still following the masterplan inherited from the Socialist Realism era.

This is the inverse fate of the functionally conceived Vzorné Sídliště/Stalingrad, which was finished in Socialist Realist style, but following modernistic layout drafted in pre-Communist two-year plan. Czechoslovakian modern architecture bounced back, as evidenced by the Golden Medal for the national pavilion at the 1958 Brussels Expo.

Furthermore, alleged mistakes in earlier geological surveys, as well as a decision not to mine under Ostrava’s city center in 1964 put a definite stop on the ambitious plan of relocating the city, and Nová Ostrava became Poruba, effectively just another suburb of the existing city. The Danube-Odra canal was never built, further undermining the planner’s original intention The southern terrace of Nová Ostrava was never realised, while the northern part of the plan (4th, 7th, 8th), along with the easternmost district of the central Poruba (5th district), as well as the university/hospital (6th district) were were built in accordance with modernist functionalist principles in the 1960s and 1970s.

The architecture of Socialist Realism was largely forgotten, but not demolished, and came into light in 1980s when the architectural debate on postmodernism reached the countries of the Eastern bloc, and attempts by architects have been made to perhaps salvage some of the formal features of Socialist realism (decoration, eclecticism, historical allusions, as well as a more traditional urbanism), but disregarding its implicit ideological features.

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Fig 26. Hlaní Třída panaorama (B. Jelchaninov), Left side: First district, right side: second district (Aktron, 2011)

Fig 27. Oblouk, Evžen Šteflíček (Strakoš, 2010, p. 168), General Staff building (1819-1829) in Saint Petersburg (Strakoš, 2010, p. 169)

Fig 28. Věžičky, B. Jelchaninov (own photograph), Inpiration for Věžičky, U Lhotů house, Prague (Strakoš, 2010, p. 172)

Fig 29. Housing on Nábřeží svazu protifašistických bojovníků, V. Hilský (own photograph).

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Decoration, symbolism and layout The method of Socialist Realism produced its most diverse and coherent architectural ensemble in the first and second phases of Poruba’s development. There are several reasons for this. Firstly, the architectural and artistic directives were imported from the Soviet Union and implemented in a top down manner. Even though Czechoslovakia had some outstanding art-deco or neo-classicistic works in the interwar period, there was never much thought given to a kind of “national form” in the architectural discourse, which was mostly modernist. The architects therefore had a very short time to adapt an essentially foreign method to domestic architecture with very few direct precedents, only the Soviet Union could serve as an effective example, much like for other areas of life.

Secondly, the demands for representation were quite varied.

Socialist realism demanded that the architects be well versed in national and classcicist traditions and of course, Soviet Socialist Realism. Furthermore, a contemporary, forward-looking (in the sense of anticipating the future) streak had been added, since the architecture was to reflect the optimism and joy brought to the worker by the communist regime.

Some authors might consider Socialist Realism somehow related to the eclectic, beaux-arts tradition of Chicago’s 1893 Columbia Exhibition, which later resurfaced in a more restrained art deco form in Europe and the world in the 1920s.

However, it must be remembered that while there might be formal similarities, sorela is not an offshoot of Art Deco, and the only similarities are morphologic, as they both use classicism as (one of) their inspirations. Nowhere do the architects of Socialist Realism refer to Art Deco, Beaux-Arts, or even the traditionalist (and socially charged) architecture of the Red Vienna as their inspiration.

If we are to analyse the imagery in Ostrava’s first and second Poruba district we are be able to discern a couple of recurring themes in the decorative elements used in the area’s architecture, as well as a hierarchy of historical appliques and styles.

The buildings that define the main axis (Hlavní Třída) (Fig 26.) of Poruba was designed by Boris Jelchaninov, a Soviet émigré, together with Frantisek Michalik and others from Stavoprojekt in Ostrava. The building blocks are six stories tall. The corners of the avenue are raised to eight stories, the lower buildings have a low pitched roof and the arches/ portals that offer acess to the green public courtyards are seven storeys tall. The buildings are decorated in classicistic style, with giant ionic order columns (rounded in the corner

section and portals), otherwise the columns are flat (rectangular).

While the urban layout and accentuating elements (portals and corners buildings) are almost identical, the building of the first district (southern side of the avenue, which was built first) feature more elaborate decorations: There are more sections of the façade decorated with giant order, for example and the balconies are more ornate which creates a more animated streetscape.

The plinth is rusticated and houses shops and facilities for the inhabitants. These buildings lining Hlavní Třída are modelled on a classicistic principle, but on a scale that is virtually unknown in Czechoslovakia and probably finds its closest formal counterparts in the Russian palaces of Saint-Petersburg. In what could be considered a nod to the Czech “national form”, the architects have added a few Renaissance style balconies into the façade’s composition. However, unlike the well-proportioned palaces of the past, which sported generous ceiling heights and tall, large windows, the palaces for the people built here have small square windows which are somewhat detrimental to the verticality and monumentality of the buildings.

Other notable buildings in the first district of Poruba include “Oblouk” (meaning Crescent) building, designed by Evžen Šteflíček and his team, which forms the south gate to the new city quarter and masks the part of Poruba that had been laid out according to functionalist principles during the two-year plan.

This symbolically important building once again shows allegiance to Russian classicism, by referencing the form and function (a symbolic gateway through the complex) of Karl I. Rossi’s General Staff Building from 1819-1829 (Fig 27.). From an urban-morphological view, the formal similarity is quite astounding, though the façade’s design and composition (apart from the main arch) is slightly less classicistic and more reminiscent in its elevation of, for example one of the wings of the castle in Český Krumlov.

The tower at the south-western end of the building can either be read as a Czech version of, for exampleth tower of the Admirality building in Saint Petersburg, or can be read as a reference to a typology of Czech church towers, a similar form being found again in Český Krumlov. In any case, we can see that an attempt has been made to perhaps tone down, or Czech-ify historical Russian precedents with Czech historical typo-morphologies.

An attempt to produce a more purely Czech variant of Socialist Realism had been attempted by Boris Jelchaninov in the Complex Věžičky (Towers), on one of the secondary axes which runs perpendicular to the main avenue. Here, the architect is supposed to have been directly insipired by a tower of the U Lhotů house in Prague’s new town, which was demolished in 1913 (Fig 28.). While that particular form of the gable is in fact quite common in many Renaissance townhouses and palaces in Czech lands, and can be also seen in one of the housing blocks alongside the Nábřeží svazu protifašistických bojovníků, the tower form in the overall composition of the block is quite unique. The house 25

Fig 30. Buildings on the less representative streets still follow the classical compositional rules (base, middle, top) but feature less elabotarate decoration, Poruba first district (own photographs)

Fig 31. Reliefs above access portals to apartments on Nábřeží svazu protifašistických bojovníků (own photographs)

Fig 32. Decorative fragments on Poruba’s buildings: ballustrades, reliefs, sgrafitto decorations at the base and below the roofline (own photographs)

Fig 33. Miner’s dwellings from the 19461948 two year plan meets sorela (own photograph), left, A pair of precast decorative elements (Ledvina, 1952, p 266).

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itself features some standard historicizing elements, such as loggias, sgraffito decoration and even a sundial. On a closer inspection, the motifs on the façade are those of playing children, whereas the Renaissance houses often depicted more bourgeoisie subjects of merchants, justice or perhaps more allegorical motifs. And similarly to the classicism-inspired blocks, the large scale and proportions of the block do not fit the established Czech Renaissance reference.

These overly representative and monumental buildings that line the main axes and symbolic points of the first district and their decoration had been given to the most experienced (in Socialist Realism) architects of their time. The facades of the more intimate spaces (off the main or secondary axes) of the first and second district of Poruba, though still decorated, are finished with a more utilitarian, less carnival-like character (Fig 30.). This underlines the monumental, hierarchical nature of Socialist Realist urbanism. Nevertheless, a sense of unity is maintained through the use of rationalized building blocks which are simply assembled standard buildings to form a desired urban ensemble and decorated the facades accordingly, i.e. with respect to their place in the urban tissue. These more intimate spaces (off of the main axes) feature a less plastic façade, though small details, such as cornices, sgraffito decorations beneath the roofline and various references to folk, industrial, socialist-realist or folk motives keep the Socialist Realistic narrative flowing. Furthermore, although the inner blocks tend to be rather monofunctional (meaning that the plinth is residential, though the raised from the ground level to ensure greater privacy); the classical division of base, middle and top is still adhered to. The base is often rusticated, the top features sgraffito decorations. The mid-section of the building is often organized along the principle of “compositional spots”, in which façade elements, such as chambranle, balconies and other decorations were based on the block’s inherent symmetry, orientation with respect to urban axes and vistas, and not necessarily with the functional requirements of the dwellings inside. Unlike the in the West, where post war reconstruction often meant a balcony for ever dwelling, under socialist realism, the need for monumentality and unity of urban ensembles was seen as more important. The building morphology and layout ensures a feeling of unity, while the subtle differences in historical/narrative appliques introduce a subtle differentiation in the living environment, something which the later modernist projects (in both parts of Europe) often lack.

or motives from Industry (tractor wheels, mining hammers) which are often accompanied by either a star or a hammer and a sickle to represent the communist industry’s importance in securing the good life for the proletariat. Similar motifs appear on the sgraffito decoration just below the roofline (Fig 31-32).

Last but not least, a curious connection occurs between the miner’s dwelling from the two year plan (1946-48) and Poruba’s political rhetoric. There is a point in the plan, in which the austere, functional and unadorned dwelling is added onto and becomes a part of Poruba’s larger form. The basic composition of windows is the same, as it the building height and width of the building, along with the angle of the pitched roof. Only the gentle plasticity and use of colour in the later building’s façade shows a marked difference (Fig 33.). Often, these elements are prefabricated and attached to an essentially austere building. On an architectural level, the sorela is all about the face.

It is not surprising to find that the keystones above the access portals to dwellings’ staircases feature either folk/agricultural motives, such as crops (sunflowers, wreaths of wheat) animals (whether wild or farm ones) and horns of plenty, which represent the wealth and good intentions of the new regime 27

Fig 34. Cultural centre Radost (Joy) in Havířov, Václav Drozda (own photograph), Hlaní Třída, Renaissance style facades (own photograph)

Fig 35. Hlaní Třída, Havířov (own photograph)

Fig 36. Decorations in Havířov: the proletariat, natural/folk motifs, classical horn of plenty imagery. The switch from sorela to modernism (own photographs)

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A side step to Havířov.

While Havířov was never intended to be a case study in this thesis, it can still serve as an important case study and a parallel to Nová Ostrava. It was conceived of in the same regional plan that gave birth to Nová Ostrava, and was planned to have a population of 50 000 by 1963 (end of third five-year plan). The historical centre of the town, especially the building lining the first stretch of the Hlavní Třída (Main Avenue) are formally modelled on Czech Renaissance (Fig 34.).

The most historicizing building in this urban complex, is however the Radost (Joy) cultural center. Though Havířov still served as an important population centre, it was Nová Ostrava which was the main ideological showcase of the new regime. This could have influenced the choice for a more overt monumental classicicm there, while Havířov’s main axis was dressed in a more “local” Czech Renaissance style (Fig 35.), which occupied a somewhat secondary position in Ostrava’s plans, being either mixed with classicism, or left to be applied on secondary axes. The choice for tis style has been critised, even in its time, because some authors considered the forms of South Bohemian renaissance inappropriate for North-Eastern Moravia, but as we have seen in Poruba, sorela is essentially eclectic and hierarchic in nature.

Furthermore, just as in Ostrava, the facades off the Hlavní Třída feature sparser, less theatrical decoration than their counterparts on the main axis. The decorative elements and motifs are strikingly similar to those found in Poruba, though the town lacks the classicistic monumentality and grandeur of the former. Mouldings of native animals, symbols of plenty, as well as sgrafitto decoration depicting either folk figures or the working class (often miners) take a prominent place in the decoration of buildings. Similarly to Ostrava, about halfway through the plan, on the central square, the architecture changes back to the modernist/functionalist style, though the buildings still follow the monumental layout of the original plan (Fig 36).

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Fig 37. Aerial photo of Poruba, 1958 (Strakoš, 2010, p. 180)

Fig 39. Statues in Poruba, Socialist realism versus modernism (own photographs)

Fig 40. The eastern section of Poruba’s Hlavní Třída (own photograph)

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Later Stages of Poruba’s architectonic elaboration.

After the completion of the first district, there was a revision of the original plans. In the initial stages, the cost of façade decoration was to account for about 500 Czechoslovakian Crowns per dwelling unit (for comparison, the average monthly wage in 1952 was 1017 crowns) and the aim was to create the most diverse forms using the simplest kit of parts. Around the time of completion of the first district in 1955, a less optimistic set of news appears. Not only did the republic experience material shortages: concrete and steel were scarce in the beginning of the fifties, which lead to the builders using bricks for construction. This then lead to a shortage of bricks as the decade progressed. Furthermore, cost overruns of 2025% have been made, and a negative correlation was noted between the ease, speed and cheapness of construction versus the amount of decoration on the buildings was observed and further inefficiency of the used building morphology used in the creation of Sorela’s superblocks (“blocks in the form of L, U, Z, E or even more complicated forms”) is noted (Kasalický, 1955, p. 209).

senting leisure and consumerism that has been made possible (or at least, was promised) in the later years.

By this point, sorela is trying to reunite the need for an efficient, rational building industry and processes and the artistic qualities demanded by the new regime. They once again advise against the use of highly plastic expression, but propose a more gentle version as seen in the Czech Renaissance and vernacular architecture. Not only is the overly high plasticity of baroque thus avoided on ideological reasons (because was seen as a highly individualistic style that served feudalism), but less complex forms of the Renaissance allowed for more faster and more efficient mass production.

The aerial photograph of Poruba from 1958 is extremely important in this story. Socialist Realism had already had its time, and this would be the year that Czechoslovakian modernist pavilion would earn a gold medal at the Brussels Expo ‘58. As we can see, a few buildings in the third district of Poruba had already been finished, the rest has not risen from the ground yet. When they finally did the windows were wide, the plasterwork smooth, and balconies appeared regularly.

There is still a tripartite division of sorts, but in an entirely modern form-language. The reliefs above the access portals to the apartments are abstract, as is a statue of a reclining figure on the main square. Compare this to the statue on which marks entrance to one of the superblocks on the Nábřeží svazu protifašistických bojovníků, of a young woman in a simple peasant’s dress, kneeling down and carrying a heavy (and heavily-laden) wreath of wheat. In both cases, the art still serves as a propaganda tool. The latter depicting the virtues of hard work and newfound material wealth and security under the Communist regime, the former perhaps repre31

Fig 41. First panel house in Prague, 1955, Ďáblice neighbourhood (Flekačová, Kudyn, Zadražilová, & Halmanová, 2012)

Fig 42. Modernist housing estate in Poruba 5th district (own photograph)

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Looking back: Then and now After an intensive, but short period of fervour, socialist realism lost favour to a more modernist/technocratic approach in both architecture and city planning, not only in Czechoslovakia, but in all of Eastern Europe, which produced the now notorious panelákové sídliště (panelbau housing estates). Ironically enough, the first panel house in Prague dating from 1955 in the Ďáblice neighbourhood still bears distinct sorela decoration . The period of Socialist Realism was now seen as a deviation from the path of progress, which arose due to “the cult of personality”, sometimes even collectively blamed on the architects themselves, and was better left alone.

The first wave of interest in Socialist Realism arose in the eighties, as the loosening political atmosphere allowed some of the postmodernist rhetoric from the West to permeate the Soviet-Bloc architectural discourse. In 1985, a conference on the issue has been organized, which was attended by architects from all the socialist countries. The architects toured Poland, and noted that one of the reasons for such a large output of Socialist Realistic plans in this country was probably helped by the experience Polish architects and builders when rebuilding and reconstructing damaged historic cities such as Warsaw.

However, it is not only the historicising decoration that is the hallmark of socialist realism. It was noted that with the demise of Socialist realism, certain place-making qualities, such as attention to human scale and hierarchy of public spaces had been lost. During the conference, the Soviet and North Korean Representative avoid the stylistic and formal approach, but instead insisted on Socialist realism as a valid method for producing context bound architecture, a method which might have been misinterpreted in the 1930s to 1950s. Reasons as to why this might have been are not mentioned. Another publications which mentions Socialist realism fleetingly is the 1985/1986 issue of Architecture and Society which deals with origins of Socialist countries’ architecture. Here, much attention is either devoted to the early modernistic experimentations in Soviet Union, and the subsequent modernist interwar avant-gardes in Czechoslovakia, Hungary, East Germany and others, or to a more traditionalist view of architecture that went on during the interwar years, especially in Poland and Hungary.

The beginnings of Socialist Realism is only mentioned very briefly in the following paragraph:

“But suddenly, during 1928-1930 period, it became clear that the public was indifferent toward the “new architecture” and sometimes even hostile. It turned out that the system: archi-

tect – architectural work – consumer lacked the point of perception which is the feed back (sic.) essential for the existence of the art itself. The new architecture did not provoke associations of the traditional understanding of for beauty provided by the ensembles I the old cities or in the landscape; the new architecture had lost the national nature of the culture” (Bilinkin, 1985/1986, p. 171) Bilinkin’s essay then quickly outlines the reasons for the decline of Socialist Realism as follows:

“Just before the German invasion [in 1941-ed.] the Academy of Architecture had developed a system of large light partition walls which were industrially produced. The new panels were quickly adopted in industrial construction. By 1948, this method was used in the construction of housing as well. But at the very start of this process, it became clear that the existing type of architecture posed difficulties in the industrial production of prefabricated elements. At first the architects tried to adapt the industrial methods to the industrial methods. This, however, did not change the matter and furthermore, it changed the tectonics of architecture turning it into useless decoration… In 1957, the first enterprises appeared which produced whole buildings of prefabricated elements.”

(Bilinkin, 1985/1986, p. 171) Thus, Socialist realism was once again shown as a logical step in the Soviet Union’s architectural evolution, its demise being spelled by the emergence of very technology whose lack was one of the actual reasons for its nation-wide adoption. Discussion of the political circumstances that led to the adoption of socialist realism are not mentioned in the official publications, perhaps except a mention in Ceskoslovenský Architekt, in which the author muses at the top down adoption of the architecture, rather than its organic, bottom-up acceptance as the solution to rebuilding problematic of the era, but passes no further judgement or criticism.

The revolutions of 1989 managed to oust the Communist regimes from Eastern Europe, and the former people’s democracies countries could once again establish normal economic, diplomatic and cultural ties with the West. Architects could once again start their own studios, private commissions as well as developers soon emerged, and the functioning of the profession can be compared to other European countries.

The discussion of the recent communist past proves more difficult. In 2002, an exhibition titled “Czechoslovakian Socialist Realism 1948-1958” was held in Rudolfinum Gallery in Prague. In September of the same year, a symposium entitled “Afterwar totalitarian architecture and questions pertaining to its preservation” 33

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was held in Ostrava and another conference about Socialist Realism was held at Academy of Arts, Architecture and Design (VŠUP) in Prague.

This led to the resignation of professor Martin Kubelík from his chair at VŠUP. The controversy of the exhibition points at the still-sensitive topic of the Communist past. A variety of critics, writers, historians and architects have been invited to send a reaction to the Czech magazine Architekt (2003/2) in order to present their views on the matter.

pleasant and perhaps not the proudest moments, and thus enabling a more balanced, objective discussion about the architecture of Socialist Realism seems to have gained some footing. In 2003, the first and second district of Poruba had been declared heritage zones, due to the fact that it was a large scale urban ensemble (though the originally planned city was much larger) bearing the hallmarks of socialist realism.

Professor Kubelík’s main argument is that many of the speakers at the VŠUP conference were “ ‘scientists’ who during the totalitarian era have clearly demonstrated their amoral and opportunist attitude”. Josef Šanda argues that the exhibitions and the conferences had not presented Socialist Realism in the context of totalitarian regime, under which scores of people were sent to forced labour camps for their opposition to the new regime and not following its directives, especially when the conferences/exhibition went very far to present the “(re-)building enthusiasm” of the era. Furthermore, Šanda feels that personal failures of the artists/architects working for the regime of the era were not sufficiently exposed and condemned.

Other reactions by organisers or attendees of the conference/ exhibition try to highlight the fact that of course the conferences/exhibition presume a certain background knowledge of the 1950s and the political situation of the era (Martin Strakoš, an architectural historian form Ostrava). Similarly, we are reminded that the socialist rebuilding of the country, with new towns and factories was nevertheless supported by many people who found employment/residence there.

Some even go as far as to suggest that the subject matter is not worthy of an exhibition or a symposium in one of Prague’s foremost galleries or academies, since the artistic production under the tenents of Socialist Realism is without any artistic merit (Pavla Pecinková) or remains unconvincing (Martina Pachmanová).

Some draw parallels between the contemporary discussion of the art of Socialist Realism with the Communist-era discussions of Baroque art where “anyone wanting to talk about Baroque had to mention the suffering masses” (Jindřich Vybíral), though he does admit that “Sorela isn’t Baroque”. Kimberley J. Elman, an attendee from New York feels that moral failings need to be pointed out and acknowledged, but that neither the conference, nor the exhibition is the grounds for petty personal revenge.

Nevertheless, the need to preserve history, even in its un35

Fig 43. One of the few sorela buildings in Poruba 3rd district, on Hlavní Třída (own photograph)

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Poruba Today Today, Poruba is still forms western edge of Ostrava, and a modernist housing estate has grown up on the northerns side. The two districts have that have been finished under Socialist Realism have been listed as a “protected zone”. A walk down the Hlavní Třída came as a pleasant surprise.

The monumental avenue now features tall trees, that somewhat soften the sheer size of the project. The traffic volume is somewhat lower, though that might be more dependent on the time of my visit.Similar to any housing estate in former Czechoslovakia, the most buildings could use a little maintenance. The same could be said about public space. Yet the place is alive.

There are diverse shops and services in the plinth of people’s palaces, most of them now in private hands. The benches in the inner superblocks are occupied by inhabitants. (Two of them strike up a conversation, and I take their picture).

An old man jokingly asks me whether I’m bird-watching when he sees me aiming my camera at the rooftops. Children still play in the green areas. Nothing out of the ordinary is going on. The scale is pleasant, walkable, urban and highly permeable; the amount of public green space generous. The architecture is still trying to tell its story of a better, more joyous life for the working classes. The sgraffito decorations of flowers; the dainty lace patterns around the windows and the keystones with hammers and sickles still form a backdrop to everyday life here, though the last sort of imagery does make me do a double take. Architecture seems to have forgotten itself, but not one of the inhabitants seem to mind.

When I talked about the problems facing Poruba with Martin Strakoš the day before I visited it, there was nothing that couldn’t be said of any European after-war housing estate.

The flats are too small for today’s standards, and there isn’t quite enough variety of types and layouts. Parking space is a problem. No planner, Easter or Western, could have quite anticipated a future where the average household had one or even two cars. However, unlike many modernist projects, Poruba is actually fairly well connected and serviced by public transport, schools, hospitals, shops and other amenities, and the hierarchic urban layout seems beneficial when it comes to creating a very specific sense of place, and a neighbourhood with a sense of social control.

Any serious threats to Poruba seem to be those of Ostrava itself: relatively high unemployment and population shrinkage.

Perhaps Poruba’s greatest achievement isn’t its attempt to try and fashion a new Communist person, but it’s successful physical integration into Ostrava and the countryside, and its ability to provide a pleasant living environment for its inhabitants to this day.

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