The House of Ladislav and Iška Sutnar
Oldřich Starý designed a minimalist house with a studio on the south side situated on stilts commissioned by the great Czech graphic artist and designer Ladislav Sutnar, his wife Františka and their two sons. The studio, which spread over one and a half floors, was equipped with a gallery accessible by a ship’s ladder and later expanded. The Sala Terrena formed by the stilts was glassed in as a sunroom in the early 1960s.
Architect
Oldřich Starý
(*1884 Praha +1971 Praha)
A pioneer of Czech functionalism, architect, theoretician, and teacher; he is one of the most prominent figures in Czech modern architecture of the interwar period, with its principles of “new architecture,” purity, truthfulness of form, and the belief that architecture is not an art but a “scientifically-based cultural task.” He soon became a harsh critic of excessive façade decoration. Bearing in mind Le Corbusier’s view of the house as a “machine for living,” he designed four houses in Baba (Heřman, Bouda, Vaváček, and Sutnar). He is the author of the palace building on Národní třída in Prague, which he designed for the Czechoslovak Werkbund in 1936, and he was also the Werkbund’s president from 1935. He also presided over the Architects’ Club and was the editor of the functionalist “Stavba” Magazine. He was a professor and later the rector of CTU in Prague.
1903-1909
studied architecture with Professors Josef Schulz and Jan Evangelista Koula at CTU in Prague
1912-1919
professor at the State Technical School in Pilsen
1913
founding member of the Architects’ Club
1920-1945
professor at the State Technical School in Prague
1920-1948
President of the Architects’ Club
1922-1939
editor-in-chief of the “Stavba” Magazine
1939-1971
editor-in-chief of the “Architektura” Magazine
1945-1970
professor of architecture at CTU in Prague
1948
Rector of CTU
Significant Works
1928
house at the Exhibition of Contemporary Culture in Czechoslovakia, Brno
1929-1932
villas in Prague-Dejvice 1934-36
1932
houses of Iška and Ladislav Sutnar, František Heřman, Cyril Bouda and Karla and Gustav Vaváček, Baba, Prague-Dejvice
1934-1936
House of Art Industry on Národní třída in Prague (in cooperation with František Zelenka)
1935
villa in Prague-Braník
Owner
Ladislav Sutnar
Ladislav Sutnar (1897-1976), as one the leading figures of the Czechoslovak Werkbund, worked as the chief architect on all of its domestic and foreign exhibitions. As the author of top functionalist typographic works, he undertook the unique visual concept of the Baba estate model exhibition in 1932. He designed the logo, two large advertising banners and letterheads and he authored the exhibition catalogue. He collaborated closely with the architects of the Czechoslovak Werkbund and, in 1939, providence led him to stay in New York, where he was commissioned to implement the Czechoslovak exposition at the World’s Fair. He successfully continued his career at the Sutnar Office. After the war, his family left to join him.
