Databáze uměleckých výstav v českých zemích 1820 – 1950

The 1926 exhibition of Jan Kotěra (1871–1923) was the first to showcase the lifelong work of this Czech architect. Likely the most extensive Kotěra show to date, it featured more than 800 artifacts and filled all the exhibition halls of the Municipal House, further partitioned into smaller spaces. A smaller Kotěra retrospective was held by the Society of Architects in 1921, two years before Kotěra's death, as part of its members' exhibition in Prague. The 1926 exhibition in the Municipal House was organized by the Mánes Association of Fine Arts which Kotěra had been heading since the beginning of the century and whose members he would often invite to co-create the final aesthetic of his buildings. Such a grand exhibition undoubtedly strengthened Mánes's position on the Czechoslovak cultural scene and it simultaneously demonstrated the power of a genealogical line in Czech modern architecture begun by Kotěra and developed by his followers—teachers at architecture schools, their students, and the students of students.

Zdeněk Wirth, who designed the conception of the 1926 show, had been promoting Kotěra in his critical reviews since the beginning of the 20^th century [Uhlíková 2010]. In the interwar period,  Wirth was employed at the Ministry of Education and Enlightenment as a sectional chief of the heritage conservation department. In his work on the exhibition, he was assisted by the exhibition committee consisting of prominent members of Mánes and the Society of Architects. Vojtěch Bůžek, an employee of Kotěra's studio, and Kotěra's son Mirko helped sort out the architect's estate. Wirth aimed to present Kotěra's work in its full scope, from sketches, plans and photographs of buildings through his landscape paintings, drawings and caricatures all the way to everyday objects that Kotěra designed. “We can take a look into his mental workshop here,” said Wirth in his opening address for the exhibition on January 6, 1923. In order to present Kotěra's oeuvre “as it has never been shown before” [Anonymous author 1925–1926, p. 107], “in the most complete set possible” [Anonymous author 1925, p. 131], the Mánes Association asked all owners of Kotěra's works to register them for loan at the association's secretariat in the year leading up to the exhibition. On Wirth's suggestion, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs even sent a request to the Soviet People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs (NKVD) to find the set of designs and drawings that Kotěra sent to an exhibition in Charkov in 1914. As evident from the exhibition catalogue, Wirth divided the collected material into the following sections: personal objects, monumental architecture, utilitarian structures, and paintings.

The exhibition enjoyed unusual attention from both professional periodicals and the daily press. The reviews generally follow two types of narrative regarding the architect's fate. The first describes Kotěra as a tragic figure whose work remained unfinished due to his untimely death. In his article for Lidové noviny, the literary historian Arne Novák writes: “Even before they step into the entrance hall, visitors of Kotěra's Prague exhibition are prepared for the melancholy impression of a life that ended too soon. Here, a bust of the master deceased in the prime of his virile strength silently watches an easel holding unfinished architectural sketches from which Jan Kotěra was taken away by the harsh imperative of death.” [Novák 1926, pp. 1–2] In his review for the daily Venkov, the playwright Jaroslav Hilbert also regrets Kotěra's untimely or, as he puts it,“stupid” death. According to Novák, however, Kotěra's tragic fate could be traced to the excessive individualism of his monumental buildings which, except for the National House in Prostějov, failed to fit in the old urban wholes [Novák 1926, pp. 1–2].

Novák's statement about the non-contextuality of  Kotěra's buildings irritated Karel Teige who, as a member of the Club For a New Prague, did not see the harmonious relationship between a new building and its older surroundings as an important value [Anonymous author 1924–1925, p. 43]. Teige's review of Kotěra's exhibition in the journal Stavba represents another narrative about Kotěra's life, which was also present in reviews by Josef Čapek in Lidové noviny, Oskar Schürer in Tribuna, František Xaver Šalda in Tvorba, Bohumil Markalous in the journal Stavitel and the author writing under the mark “N” in the daily Národní osvobození. All these reviewers admit that Kotěra's death was untimely, but they add that he still managed to steer Czech architecture in the right direction, which is maintained by his followers. When describing the artifacts at the exhibition, Čapek, “N” and particularly Teige focused on the trend toward purism in Kotěra's architectural form.

Teige's perspective on the history of Czech modern architecture was strongly purpose-oriented and almost teleological – he only appreciated tendencies leading toward purism and functionalism – and he even complained in Stavba that the exhibition in the Municipal House was too all-encompassing and so showed some of Kotěra's weaker works. “Next time and for the future it should be a selection, a critical selection,” appeals Teige to the curators of a future Kotěra exhibition. “A critical selection is necessarily restrictive, rejecting any not-so-valuable, decorative, second-rate works that may distort and misconstrue the clear, constructive profile of Kotěra's architecture.” [Teige 1925–1926, pp. 90–93] In his review for Tribuna, the Czech-German art historian Oskar Schürer writes in a similar spirit: the show was “stuffed with everything by Kotěra they could have possibly found.” [Schürer 1926, pp. 1–2]

This conflict between Wirths's conception – to show practically everything – and Teige's and Schürer's demand for a critical selection presents an ongoing challenge for curators of large architectural retrospectives.

Rostislav Švácha

Works Cited

Anonymous author 1924–1925: Anonymous author, Klub Za novou Prahu, Stavba III, 1924–1925, p. 43

Anonymous author 1925: Anonymous author, Posmrtnou výstavu prací architekta Jana Kotěry, Stavitel VI, 1925, p. 131

Anonymous author 1925–1926: Anonymous author, Souborná výstava Jana Kotěry, Styl VI (XI), 1925–1926, p. 107

Hilbert 1926: Jaroslav Hilbert, V Kotěrově výstavě, Venkov XXI, 1926, no. 21, 24. 1., pp. 1–2

Novák 1926: Arne Novák, Tragika architektova, Lidové noviny XXXIV, 1926, no. 16, 10. 1., pp. 1–2

Schürer 1926: Oskar Schürer, Kotěrova výstava v Obecním domě, Tribuna VIII, 1926, no. 19, 22. 1., pp. 1–2

Teige 1925–1926: K[arel] Teige, Posmrtná výstava Jana Kotěry, Stavba IV, 1925–1926, pp. 90–93

Uhlíková 2010: Kristina Uhlíková, Zdeněk Wirth, první dvě životní etapy (1878–1938), Prague 2010

Further Reading

Otakar Novotný, Jan Kotěra a jeho doba, Prague 1958

Bohuslav Fuchs, In margine uměleckého odkazu Jana Kotěry, Brno 1972

Jan Kotěra 1871–1923: Zakladatel moderní české architektury (introduction by Vladimír Šlapeta), Prague 2001

Archival Sources

Archive of National Gallery Prague, AA 2777

Archive of IAH CAS, fonds Zdeněk Wirth, W-A-7/vol. 1, fol. 72–149

Anonymous author, Souborná výstava architekta Jana Kotěry v Obecním domě, Výtvarná práce IV, 1926, pp. 201–202

Anonymous author, Posmrtnou výstavu prací architekta Jana Kotěry, Stavitel VI, 1925, p. 131

Anonymous author, Výstava Jana Kotěry, Stavitel VI, 1925, pp. 159–160

Jaroslav Hilbert, V Kotěrově výstavě, Venkov XXI, 1926, no. 21, 24. 1., pp. 1–2

Pavel Janák, Čtvrt století, Volné směry XXXIV, 1926, pp. 100–105, 110

Otakar Novotný, Prameny Kotěrova díla, Výtvarná práce IV, 1926, pp. 301–304

František Xaver Šalda, Příklad, Tvorba II, 1926, pp. 137–138

Karel Teige, MSA 2: Moderní architektura v Československu, Prague 1930