The City of Pilsen has furnished two rooms renovated in the Klatovská 12 building in 2004, designed by Adolf Loos in the late 1920’s for the family of Doctor Josef Vogel with replicas of the original furniture. Thus taking another step in the plan for a special tour making accessible unique apartment interiors by the world famous architect Adolf Loos. The first visitors will be able to view the two furnished rooms on the 18 th of April from 2pm –6pm.
“Adolf Loos is a significant personality of modern architecture and Pilsen was truly lucky for most of his apartment interior conversions to have been realised here. It can rival even Vienna for the number of such unique spaces. Loos’ interiors are one of the city's jewels at our disposal in the year 2015 to persuade Europe that we are a capital of culture,” says the Mayor of Pilsen, Martin
Baxa.
For the Pilsen 2015 organisation, opening the unique interiors, designed by one of the greatest architects of the modern era, up to the public is one of the key projects of the European Capital of
Culture 2015 programme. “Interiors by Loos in Pilsen had remained unnoticed by both the expert and cultural public for many long years. We are most happy that the first one of them is opening up now for other uses besides regular sightseeing tours. We plan to hold a lot of events here; in May this year, for example, we are organising the Night of Literature in cooperation with Czech Centres for the first time ever in Pilsen. The number of similar events will grow and I sincerely hope that the public will be able to see the other interiors next year as well. Reactions from our international colleagues, travel agencies and journalists clearly show that a visit to these interiors by Adolf Loos can become a very interesting tourist attraction in Pilsen. I believe we will be able to do our bit with the Pilsen 2015 project in cooperation with the owners and operators of individual interiors,” explains the Programme Director of Pilsen 2015,
Jiří Sulženko.
The demanding and expensive renovation of the dining room and the living room at the Klatovská
12 address has been realised on the basis of a project documentation prepared by a team led by the a rchitect Václav Girsa from the Faculty of Architecture at the Czech Technical University in
Prague. “We worked with the photographs of the interior to create individual pieces of furniture. We also made use of consultations with Professor Girsa,” reveals Jan Setikovský from the City of
Pilsen Public Estate Administration. Production of the interior furnishings was expertly managed by
Vladimír Bok
Historical photographs that served as the base from which the experts took off come from the private archive of Adolf Loos, which is stored at the Albertina Gallery in Vienna. “We also used original historical armchairs and chairs as models for the manufacture of replicas, which the owner of another Pilsen Loos interior Michal Brummel lent us. Thanks to the joint effort of many people, a perfectly precise reconstruction of both rooms has been achieved,” states Karel Zoch from the City of Pilsen Department of Heritage Care.
Adolf Loos designed the interior renovated this year in the house at Klatovská 12 for the family of
Doctor Josef Vogel in 1928. “It is interesting to note that it wasn’t the architect’s first apartment at this location. As early as 1908, Loos designed furniture for the previous tenant – the family of the industrialist Otto Beck, whose daughter Klára he later married,” says Karel Zoch. The Becks lived
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here until the mid-1920s, when they moved to N áměstí Míru No.2. “They disassembled the whole interior then and installed it at the new address with the assistance of Loos,” Zoch adds.
Twenty years later, Loos was commissioned by Doctor Vogel for the same space. The interior was completely different f rom the previous one. “Adolf Loos didn’t make his work any easier this time, which is admirable,” Karel Zoch notes. Then, Loos designed the furnishings not just of the whole apartment, including the dining room, living room, bedroom and the children’s bedroom, but also of the surgery and the X-ray room for Doctor Vogel.
Replicas of the furniture for part of the apartment at Klatovská No.12 were renovated ten years ago, costing the city nearly two million crowns. Another reconstruction of an apartment at the address Bendova No.10 is to be completed in the second half of June. This includes a rehabilitation of the space of the dining room, living room and bedroom with interiors by Loos as well as of other parts. The premises will offer space for intimate cultural and social events, the same as the place at Klatovská No.12.
The family of the apartment owners, the Vogels, were Jews. For this reason, they were at risk of persecution and death in a concentration camp after German occupation began. They finally managed to escape the Nazis and lived in Canada from then on. The Germans established an employment office in the building. It served as an administrative building during socialist times as well: the housing office was located here. At present it is the seat of the City of Pilsen Public Estate
Administration.
The art historian Věra Běhalová played a great role in the rescue of the Loos interior at Klatovská
12, having been responsible for its registration as a cultural heritage site in the 1960s.
Magis trát m ěs ta Pl zně | Kanc elář prim áto ra | odd . tis k ové | nám . Republi k y 1 | 306 32 Pl zeň tis k ová m lu vč í | M: 724 732 537 | T: 378 032 0 11 | E: kubalo va z@pl zen.e u w w w. p l z e n . e u
– Ži vot v Plzni – Pres s info rm ac e