Czech architects: Josef Chochol as an architect of extravagant ideas
An architect of unrestrained nature and his 3 world-famous cubist buildings
He strengthened his talent by studying at the Czech Technical University in Prague. He became known to the general public thanks to his top buildings during the cubist period between 1911 and 1914.
The first luxury cubist piece was the Kovařovicova villa in Prague, Vyšehrad. The owner himself, Bedřich Kovařovic, was a contractor and inspector of the building companies of the Prague municipality. His imposing villa contains cubist features not only in the exterior but they are reflected also in the interior and layout of adjacent luxurious gardens. Chochol situated the accented facade towards the garden. Since 1958, the villa has been included in the list of immovable cultural monuments of the Czech Republic.
For us it is a historic building, yet still modern. It lures with its exterior, and its arousing, exhilarating interior. This building will never grow old.
A true treasure in the form of a triple house
Rašínovo nábřeží no. 6-10 is dominated by a triple house with a purely cubist front facade. However, the interior is reminiscent of a Baroque palace with modern furnishing, at that time very luxuriously furnished.
The last cubist building from this architect, Hodkův nájemní dům, stands in Neklanova Street. It is a luxury four-storey building with a cubist sectioned facade and very striking corner balconies.
Post-war creation
World War I significantly affected the architect's life and moved his interest in another direction. In the 1930s, he worked on the designs of functional villas. No work with the surface, everything was subordinate to function. Beauty appears in the simple and clean lines, in smooth plaster.
Chochol also faced other challenges. He worked on small-scale flats. In 1936, he participated in the architectural competition for the construction of the smallest flats in Prague, Břevnov, designed for poor citizens, with a total area of 36 square meters. Other residential buildings were built in Prague, Libeň and Holešovice, in the same spirit.
