Czechoslovak Architecture 58-89 (Jan Zajíček, 2024)
Read in Croatian here.
The story of modern architecture, with a focus on the West, goes something like this: At the turn of the 20th century, there was a shift away from historicist admiration of past stylistic models and a demand for a purified form subordinated to functionality. Building on the ideas of early modernist figures such as architect Adolf Loos––who also authored the influential 1913 essay “Ornament and Crime“––the 1920s saw the rise of architects who became international stars, including Le Corbusier, Walter Gropius, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, and Oscar Niemeyer.
After World War II, modern architecture evolved into a social project aimed at meeting the growing need for urban housing and addressing other functional aspects of highly industrialized societies (or those on their way to becoming so). By the early 1970s, the ambitious vision of systematic modernist construction had proven excessive. Many modernist housing complexes were deemed inhospitable and were subsequently demolished.
Modernism Beyond the West
The contemporary attitude toward the architectural heritage of the second half of the 20th century is particularly complex in former socialist countries. On one hand, this heritage is often associated with the ideologies under which it was created and that have since been abandoned. This primarily affects monuments commemorating victories and sacrifices in World War II, those glorifying the role of the working class and the labor movement, or aligning with other key narratives of former regimes. On the other hand, many buildings that could have retained their function––and even state protection within a market economy and democracy––have been left to decay or subjected to irresponsible privatization. This includes former cultural centers, administrative buildings, tourist facilities, industrial complexes, etc.
This phenomenon of “forgotten heritage” also has its flipside. In a world of rapid communication, decontextualized imagery, and the constant search for new trends in tourism, the remnants of modernism have become an object of alternative fetishization. Every structure made of concrete is labeled as an example of brutalism, primarily associated with the Soviet cultural sphere, and transformed into a backdrop for various subcultural expressions, and even avant-garde high fashion.
Much like the Romantic-era fascination with ruins in the 18th century, this approach affirms modernist heritage but in a state of decay. Stripped of its original time and place, it becomes depoliticized and lends its forms to a new futuristic aesthetic. At the same time, this perspective often neglects viewpoints from what is sometimes dismissively called “the periphery”––though these places may simply represent centers alternative to the dominant ones (those of Western Europe and the U.S.). Put differently, one can speak of multiple modernisms, each with its own defining characteristics and local contributions, which remain insufficiently acknowledged.
In the context of the former Czechoslovakia, the remnants of modernism are explored in the documentary Czechoslovak Architecture 58-89 / Architektura ČSSR 58-89 (2024) by Jan Zajíček, which premiered last year in Karlovy Vary and later in Jihlava. The film was initiated by Vladimir 518, a Czech musician and multimedia artist who has been consistently engaged with modernist heritage and perspectives on its preservation. The film was preceded by a book of the same name, and Zajíček also created a television series on the subject. This project is the result of collaboration with numerous architectural historians, including co-writer Henrieta Moravčíková.
A thorough analysis of surviving modern architecture in the Czech Republic and Slovakia begins with the case of the demolition of the Trangas building in Prague, which started in 2019. The camera captures the last remnants of this late modernist, high-tech structure with elements of brutalism. Built in 1978, it once housed control and dispatch rooms for the eponymous pipeline that transported Soviet gas to Western Europe. Despite public protests and appeals to the Czech Ministry of Culture, the site––privately owned since 2015––was ultimately redeveloped into office spaces.
Meeting the Criteria for Good Architecture
However, while visiting Transgas before its demolition, one of the project’s original designers, Václav Aulický, remarks that from the perspective of contemporary architectural practice, the old facade is unnecessary––pointless in its energy inefficiency. Given the well-known disappointing outcome of modern architecture’s utopian project, a fundamental question arises: what actually defines good architecture?
A number of key figures from the era of Czechoslovak modernism offer their answers. According to their perspectives, good architecture should itself be “social” and “applied art”, even “culture rather than art”, “a service to life”, “the art of construction”, or simply “functional”. The engagement of the generations who shaped living spaces in the Czech Republic and Slovakia between 1958 and 1989 makes it clear that modern architecture’s legacy cannot be so easily dismissed.
Modern architecture has brought new materials and construction techniques, such as reinforced concrete, ideal for shaping a variety of structures in space. The heightened awareness of functionality may now be taken for granted, but at the time, it represented a revolutionary departure from the formal congestion that was not grounded in the needs of the modern human.
Thus, Zajíček’s direction itself is an homage to modernism. The film combines stunning drone shots of the locations with ground-level footage of the interviewees––mostly now retired legendary architects reflecting on their careers. The rapid scene changes by cinematographer Jiří Málek rely on anything but the compositions typically expected in talking-head documentaries. Framed in this way, the presented large amount of information never becomes boring.
Articulating Modernism
Equally important for the film’s dynamics is the fragmentation of the story into “chapters” titled after specific stylistic variations within modernism or historical milestones that, among other things, defined the conditions of urban development in the country. These segments of the historical overeview are separated by concise sans-serif subtitles positioned before a vibrant red background, intersecting numerous diagonal or otherwise compositionally unconventional shots.
The film’s sounds matter––archival footage and floor plans and drawings of the architectural works are accompanied by the sounds of metal clanging against metal, as well as rustling and whistling. The sound design is crucial both for the editing transitions and for conveying the monumentality and formal innovation of the architecture on screen.
Providing even a brief overview of the buildings covered in Zajíček’s film is challenging, but there is worth in highlighting anecdotes related to some of them. The significance of the Czechoslovak project for the 1958 EXPO exhibition in Brussels is specifically interesting. Here František Cubr, Josef Hrubý, and Zdeněk Pokorný, key figures in the Czech architectural scene of the late 1950s, incorporated art into architecture and applied rational design principles. The international success of the project prompted the government in Prague to embrace such architecture domestically, ten years after the communist coup had interrupted the previous continuity in architectural development. This shift was also preceded by the abandonment of Stalinist architecture in the USSR under Nikita Khrushchev, which automatically meant that Czech and Slovak architects could finally breathe a sigh of relief and return to what one of them, Ivan Matušík, names the “normal architecture”––simply, the architecture of modernism.
Architecture as a Battleground
That architecture manages to uniquely connect with ideas that far surpass its materiality, yet metaphorically build upon it, was particularly evident during the 1968 Soviet occupation of Czechoslovakia. The monumental heritage in Prague set up by the Soviets after World War II became the main target of civil disobedience in that broken revolution. Archival footage shows Cyrillic graffiti suggesting that those who were “liberators” in 1945 had become “occupiers” in 1968.
The same week the occupation occurred, Czechoslovakia began preparations for the pavilion at the Expo in Osaka. The architects had envisioned a modernist concept of a unique open space with a central structure resembling a frozen river. With the political changes in the country, they were forbidden to travel to the exhibition, the project was altered, and the Czechoslovak Ministry of Foreign Affairs accused the pavilion’s management team of anti-socialist activities. The modernist total design of the space, intended to redefine the artistic experience, was replaced by a crude bust of Vladimir Lenin as the central element.
This move was also a form of communication from the Soviet leadership to the outside world, to the international community, and not just to the Czech and Slovak professions and public. Despite the period of so-called “normalization” that the situation in Osaka foreshadowed, architecture had not yet exhausted its earlier potential to document resistance. After the Czechoslovak team defeated the Soviets in hockey in 1969, and clearly also under the impression of the broken Prague Spring, workers employed at one of the city’s construction sites struck the newly installed steel structure so forcefully that the entire city of Prague reverberated. All the inhabitants knew the true meaning of that emotionally charged gesture.
The internal imperfections of the Czechoslovak system were also reflected in the architectural field. The country was highly centralized, with power concentrated in Prague, while the Slovak part lagged behind the Czech one in the distribution of funds and decision-making opportunities. Slovak architects in the film describe how it quickly became apparent that Czech colleagues were constantly winning public competitions. However, Zajíček’s film showcases the great richness of Slovak modernism, indicating that, in terms of the quality of the proposed projects, the Slovaks were by no means behind the Czechs. One of the more beautiful examples is the Poľana Hotel in Tatranská Javorina, situated at an elevation of 1,000 meters above sea level, designed by Julián Hauskrecht, Štefan Ďurkovič, and Štefan Svetko, and built between 1973 and 1977. Numerous state leaders stayed there, from Leonid Brezhnev to Muammar Gaddafi to Fidel Castro. The hotel had a direct telephone connection with Moscow, established with now outdated technology, which is today interesting to see. Its interior still preserves the Soviet style with a monumental (reconstructed) chandelier and red wall tiles. The complex is still operational and, ironically, is now in Russian ownership.
Modernism Yesterday and Tomorrow
Zajíček’s film also does a lot to help the audience understand the emergence of postmodernism in architecture, demystifying whether it actually follows modernism successively or integrates it. In addition to that, it presents progressive projects that were never realized, such as the visionary proposals of the Slovak group VAL (Viera Mecková, Alex Mlynárčik, Ľudovít Kupkovič). Their internationally recognized proposals for futuristic cities with massive, rounded volumes, such as Heliopolis (1968-1974) in the High Tatras and Istroport (1974-1976) near the center of Bratislava, look exceptionally advanced even by today’s standards. Overall, the Czechoslovak case serves as a reminder that the ambition of modern architecture must be understood in the context of the broader modernist project, defined as early as the 18th century and materialized, even neutralized, in the 20th century. It was modern architecture that came closest to realizing the utopia by the standards of growth and development after World War II, reflecting views that transcended regime ideologies.
Modernism also saw the affirmation of numerous female figures, and this was not by chance. The emancipatory potential forms the foundation of modernism’s logic. Women not only collaborated on architectural projects with their male colleagues but also signed projects independently, such as the Chemapol-Investa building in the Prague district of Vršovice, built between 1966 and 1968, designed by Zdeňka Marie Nováková and Dagmar Šestáková. There was still much room for advancing the equality between women and men, and the expectations placed on women in the labor market are still complex––both for former and current regimes, employed women are primarily needed for productivity growth as a guarantor of economic growth. However, part of modernist thought is also self-fulfillment through work useful to the community with clearly separated institutions. Modern architecture, on this level, offered inclusivity from which female architects, as well as other female engineers, could benefit, not only economically but also by becoming equal participants in the system. From Zajíček’s film, it is clear that women were an integral part of the intelligentsia that facilitated Czechoslovak modernism.
It should also be noted that Czech and Slovak architects, after Khrushchev’s public condemnation of the classical and megalomaniacal socialist realism in 1954, completely turned to Western models, continuing a connection of this type that had existed since the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and later with the Bauhaus. Czech and Slovak architects followed and reinterpreted contemporary global architecture almost exclusively through foreign magazines, without witnessing the constructions firsthand. This points to the level of their professional knowledge and goes against the argument that one could easily break through in socialism without proper credentials.
Czechoslovak Architecture 58-89 is a desirable expression of interest in a legacy that is easily dismissed by the very societies that could learn the most from it. In addition to the technical excellence and originality of its creative vision, the significance of the film lies in raising awareness about the possibility of saving what remains––in the specific Czech context, this refers to the so-called Prager cubes from 1973, the never-completed complex of the headquarters of the Association of Design Studios, designed by Karel Prager and Jiří Kadeřábek, which today serves as the Prague Institute of Planning and Development. However, Zajíček’s film truly alarms viewers that saving what modernism offered means saving a neglected humanism and its utopian principles.