Databáze uměleckých výstav v českých zemích 1820 – 1950

The People’s Apartment, organized by the Czech Crafts Association in 1942 at the Art Industry House, focused on the theme of the small apartment. It presented examples of furnished interiors but also included a section devoted to home accessories and a pictorial section mapping the development of people’s apartments. In their concept, the curators Vlasta Štursová and Jiří Štursa systematized the long-standing interest of functionalist architects in small housing units with a focus on lower social classes.  

The exhibition had a significant creative aspect: the architects worked to find a collective consensus on the typification of furniture sets. Before the show, the organizers conducted a survey among the members of the Association to determine the principles of people’s furniture. This helped the designers to standardize the dimensions and minimize the number of furniture parts so that they could be easily combined in different apartment layouts [Štursa - Štursová 1942a, p. 28]. Rather than presenting an ideal home, the exhibition aimed to “evaluate or complete existing old and new people’s apartments” [Štursová – Štursa 1942b, p. 4]. The participating architects – Jan E. Koula, Ladislav Žák, Josef Petrů, Emanuela and Josef Kittrich, Karel Koželka, Ivan Nedoma, Jiří Auermüller, Josef Polášek, Oldřich Osolsobě, and Josef Grus – exhibited complex interiors of actual apartments in Prague, Brno and the countryside, presenting them as enclosed, separate units.  The architects efficiently divided the spaces with standard furniture or curtains, but as many reviews pointed out, the result was far from austere and uninteresting. Each of the interiors had special features, such as a combination of various materials and colours, plants, textiles, and art objects. Art critics generally praised the look of the typified wooden furniture, especially in comparison to the historicizing wardrobes that were still popular at the time.

Ladislav Žák, for whom the question of the people’s apartment had been a lifelong preoccupation, presented a one-room apartment furnished with wicker garden chairs and curtains of unbleached linen. Emanuela and Josef Kittrich created an intimate atmosphere for a family with a small child by using dark furniture, light curtains, a striped carpet, and subdued lighting. The exhibition also included a small pavilion of Krásná jizba (Beautiful Household), whose products were also represented in the other apartments on display. 

The design of the exhibition was simple, with the exterior panels of each unit painted a different colour to help visitors navigate the space. The overall concept was to educate the lay public so that they would fully understand the principles of contemporary housing culture [ibid., p. 197]. The effort to make the exhibition accessible to the public was also manifested in the publishing activities of the Architects' Club, which used its platform, the magazine Architektura, to inform about the exhibition even before it opened, and continued to publish related, richly illustrated texts during and after the exhibition. In addition to residential architecture, the editors focused on industrial design, which was an important part of the exhibition, presented both as examples of interiors and in separate sections devoted to, for example, children's toys, utensils and tools, and fabrics. Among the products on display were textiles by Antonín Kybal, lamps by Jaroslav Anýž, and porcelain by Ladislav Sutnar. In this respect, the exhibition reflected the situation during the Second World War, when architects became increasingly interested in housing and mass-produced art.

Photography was an important medium in the exhibition, particularly in the section devoted to the development of the small apartment, designed by Luděk Kubeš. Here, the images on the exhibition panels represented forms of housing from nineteenth-century private apartment buildings to small apartments owned by coops or municipalities. The people’s apartment theme was illustrated by theoretical studies, competition projects, and exhibitions from the last 20 years.

The exhibition committee planned to use the front wall of the exhibition hall for accompanying projections and popularization lectures, and they also wanted to exhibit furniture puzzles and some models. However, the original plan had to be adapted to wartime conditions and the resulting lack of funds. Although they had to simplify their exhibition concept, the authors considered the exhibition a success, as is clear from their text in Architektura.

The press reviews were generally positive. Critics paid particular attention to the interiors with their standardized furniture and welcomed the architects' efforts to accommodate the everyday life of ordinary people. A rare negative review appeared in the daily Národní politika, which described the concept of the exhibition as “generally inconclusive” [KSK 1942, p. 3]. The main reason for this, according to the author, was the vagueness of the term “people,” which could include very different social groups. He also disliked the idea of merging the kitchen and living room to gain more space. On the other hand, Jiřina Svobodová, a reviewer for Ženské noviny, praised the functional organization of the apartment units and emphasized the architects' sensitive approach to the needs of housewives. Women’s interest in the exhibition was also due to the participation of the Czech Housewives’ Association, which had collaborated with the Czech Crafts Association on the previous exhibition entitled Housing in 1941. Compared to that exhibition, The People’s Apartment had a narrower scope and placed more emphasis on actual housing conditions.

Magdalena Dědičová

Works Cited

Štursa – Štursová 1942a: Jiří Štursa – Vlasta Štursová, Umělecký průmysl, lidový nábytek, Architektura IV, 1942, pp. 27–28

Štursová – Štursa 1942b: Vlasta Štursová – Jiří Štursa, Lidový byt (exh. cat.), Praha 1942, p.4

Štursová – Štursa 1942c: Vlasta Štursová – Jiří Štursa, Poznámky k instalaci výstavy „Lidový byt“, Architektura IV, 1942, pp. 197–198

KSK 1942: KSK, Kulturní obzor, K výstavě „Lidový byt“., Národní politika LX, 1942, no. 212, 4. 8., p.3

Further Reading

Vladimír Czumalo, Česká teorie architektury v letech okupace, Praha 1991

Emanuela Kittrichová, Byt ukazatelem kulturní úrovně, České slovo XXXIV, 1942, no. 118, 20. 5., p.8

Jana Pauly, Průmyslový design ve čtyřicátých letech, in: Taťána Petrasová, Helena Lorenzová (ed.), Dějiny českého výtvarného umění V, 1939–1958, Praha 2005, pp. 243–255

Marcela Suchomelová,  Krajina s nábytkem. Návrhy, plány a konstrukce Jana E. Kouly (1896 – 1975) a jeho pojetí "lidového bytu (domu)" (dissertation), Praha 2017 

Jiřina Svobodová, Lidový byt, Ženské noviny XXIV, 1942, no. 22, 6. 6., p.7

Archival Sources

NTM, AAS, fonds Štursa, Štursová: Lidový byt, výstava Svazu českého díla [Štursa, Štursová: People’s Apartment, an exhibition of the Czech Arts and Crafts Association] 

NTM, AAS, fonds Jan E. Koula: Svaz českého díla – výstava „Lidový byt“ [Jan E. Koula:  Czech Arts and Crafts Association – exhibition “People’s Apartment]

Anonymous author, Svaz českého díla …, Večer národ a práce XXVIV, 1942, no. 84, 30. 4., p.2

Anonymous author, Výstava Lidový byt …, Večer národ a práce XXVIV, 1942, no. 140, 18. 7., p.2

J. P., Výstava Lidový byt, Venkov XXXVII, 1942, no. 164, 12. 7., p.7

Vd, Pražský primátor na výstavě Lidového bytu, Lidové noviny L, 1942, no. 358, 16. 7., p.2

zk/H., Moderní lidový byt, Pressa XIV, 1942, no. 86, 6. 5., p.6