Databáze uměleckých výstav v českých zemích 1820 – 1950

In 1898, after the successful Jubilee Exhibition (1891) and Ethnographic Exhibition (1895), another major showcase took place at the Prague Exhibition Grounds – the Exhibition of Architecture and Engineering combined with an exhibition of engines and auxiliary machines for small businesses, along with an associated exhibition of inventions for trades and a specialized exhibition of tinsmithing in the lands of the Czech Crown. As the subtitle of the exhibition suggests, its scope was very broad – in addition to architectural models, model interiors, facades, and drawings, it also included various machines, engines, bicycles, electrical appliances, presentations of small and larger businesses, and works by students of secondary technical schools. The wide range of exhibited artifacts and goods resulted from the merger of several exhibitions that were originally planned as separate events. The Association of Architects and Engineers of the Kingdom of Bohemia, which initiated the exhibition of contemporary Czech architecture and engineering, had various practical reasons for adding other segments to the exhibition during its preparation. According to the introductory text in the catalogue, the exhibition was intended to demonstrate the "maturity of contemporary Czech technical intelligence" [Kafka 1898, p. 8] and to present its achievements to the public.

The preparation of such an enormous and diverse exhibition required the division of the artefacts into nine groups, further subdivided into sections, the preparation of which was overseen by separate committees. The executive committee, which supervised the entire event, consisted mostly of members of the association, joined by architect and deputy mayor of Prague Karel Vlček and František Křižík as a representative of the Prague Chamber of Commerce and Industry. The Architecture and Construction group contained the largest number of artefacts, including architectural designs and plans, applied arts, model dwellings, and the works of building craftsmen and tradesmen, and was housed in the left wing of the palace. The central space of this part of the exhibition – a decorative hall with predominantly historicizing facades – was intended to showcase buildings of "Czech character." The right wing housed the Engineering group, which featured road and bridge construction, the work of water, agricultural, and metallurgical engineers, as well as an exhibition dedicated to land surveying. Smaller exhibition groups were located in provisional pavilions: Mechanical Engineering and Electrical Engineering, Specialized Education, Historical Department (presenting monuments from the Romanesque style to the Baroque), a separate Exhibition of Small Motors, Auxiliary Machinery and Tools for Crafts and Small Industry, Railways, Inventions for Trades and Crafts, and Professional Literature.

The exhibition guide also mentions a number of other pavilions, restaurants, cafés, and shops that were an integral part of the entire event. One of these structures – the Artists' Tavern called "U Nesmysla" (The Nonsense Bar) – featured decorations by Vítězslav Mašek, Luděk Marold, Ladislav Šaloun, and others intended as a parodic response to the search for a new style, a hot topic in the art world at the time, and the emerging Vienna Secession. The exhibition also included the Czechoslovak Village complex, built for the ethnographic exhibition in 1895 and consisting of several buildings by Jan Koula, Dušan Jurkovič, Eduard Sochor, and others inspired by folk architecture. František Křižík's Light Fountain, which was installed at the Exhibition Grounds for the 1891 exhibition, underscored the festive character of the whole area.

As in the case of the two previous exhibitions mentioned above, which the executive committee clearly followed, the exhibition took the form of a festival, an event that included not only exhibitions of technical artefacts and presentations of small businesses from Prague and other cities in Bohemia and beyond, but also lectures, concerts, theatrical performances, and screenings of films by Jan Kříženecký in the Urania theater, which was built especially for the exhibition. One of the main "attractions", often mentioned in the press, was the panorama depicting the Battle of Lipany, created for the exhibition by Luděk Marold and other painters. The spectacular battle scene, housed in a separate, round wooden pavilion designed by Jiří Justich, was intended to provide visitors with a powerful visual experience that would counterbalance the static professional exhibits. Although by different means than the machines on display, Marold's panorama also represented the "brotherhood of technology and art" proclaimed in the exhibition catalogue. It was precisely this link between artistic, technical and professional circles that the contemporary press saw as the exhibition's fundamental contribution.

The exhibition opened with a ceremonial procession to the Exhibition Grounds on June 15. It was originally scheduled to last until September 15 but eventually ended a month later. Public interest was enormous – in the first ten days alone, the organizers recorded 37,000 visitors [Anonymous author 1898a], and a month and a half after the opening, it celebrated its quarter-millionth visitor [Anonymous author 1898b]. As with the previous two major national exhibitions, excursions were organized from all over the Czech kingdom. The Exhibition of Architecture and Engineering was primarily intended to showcase the achievements of national, Bohemian crafts and industry, although foreign exhibitors were also invited to participate in some groups. Considering that the exhibition guide, which in the Czech version was a large book of almost 350 pages, was also to be published in German and French, there can be no doubt that the exhibition aimed to reach international audiences and to introduce them to the successes of Czech technology.

The fact that this was an important event not only for Prague, but also for its visitors, is evidenced by the number of extensive reports and smaller mentions that appeared in the press and in a number of specialized periodicals and regional newspapers almost daily throughout the entire duration of the exhibition. The list of small reports about the exhibition could be almost endless. Most of the reviewers tried to present the exhibition as a whole and to describe its individual parts. The concept itself, essentially following that of a trade fair, was not subject to any constructive criticism, although the reviewer for the journal Naše doba did point out the inherent challenges of an architectural exhibition, particularly the impossibility of showing the actual buildings. [Vávra 1898, p. 3]

When discussing the architectural part of the exhibition, reviewers largely focused on the content. A key theme was the conflict between historicism, employed in the model facades, some interiors, and in the concept of the historical part of the exhibition, and the desire to find a new style, which gained a particular urgency in the Czech milieu in the final years of the 19th century. On the one hand, the architects looked to folklore for inspiration, and on the other, they used Art Nouveau ornamentation, as can be seen in the panorama pavilion, interiors, and decorations. The strong emphasis on historical references was balanced not only by this forward-looking search for a new style but also by the presentation of modern industrial machines and the completely innovative cinematograph of Jan Kříženecký. The Exhibition of Architecture and Engineering therefore plays a role in the history of Czech art as an event where historicism and modernism clashed, as the reviewer of Volné směry [Anonymous author 1898c, pp. 523-524] pointed out. It was not a breakthrough event in this "struggle", but rather one of the initiating moments after which Czech architecture slowly embarked on a new, modern path, completely detached from historical models.

Tereza Štěpánová

Works Cited

Anonymous author 1898a: Anonymous author, Výstava architektury a inženýrství v Praze 1898. Palác průmyslový, Národní listy XXXVIII, 1898, no. 173, 25. 6., p. 3

Anonymous author 1898b: Anonymous author, Výstava architektury a inženýrství v Praze 1898, Katolické listy II, 1898, no. 207, 30. 7., p. 5

Anonymous author 1898c: Anonymous author, Výstava architektury a inženýrství, Volné směry II, 1898, pp. 521–526

Kafka 1898: Josef Kafka, Výstava architektury a inženýrství (exh. cat.), Praha 1989

Vávra 1898: Antonín Vávra, Letošní výstava architektury a inženýrství, Naše doba VI, 1898–1899, no. 1, 20. 10., pp. 2–14

Further Reading

Marcela C. Efmertová, České země v letech 1848–1918, Praha 1998, pp. 396–398

B. Kavka, Výstava architektury a inženýrství, Zprávy Spolku architektův a inženýrů v Království českém XXXII, 1898, pp. 27–29; 53–55; 92–94

Marcel Pencák, Nástup architektonické moderny a c. k. Česká vysoká škola technická, Umění LVI, 2008, no. 6, p. 520

Jan Sedlák, Výstava architektury a inženýrství v Praze roku 1898, Hlas národa, 1898, no. 139, 21. 5., p. 1; no. 142, 24. 5., p. 1; no. 143, 25. 5., p. 1

Kateřina Turková, Architektura na výstavě. Nástup moderní architektury na velkých pražských výstavách 1891–1908, thesis KTF UK, Praha 2018, pp. 45–50

Tomáš Vlček, Praha 1900, studie k dějinám kultury a umění Prahy v letech 1890–1914, Praha 1986, pp. 68–70

Archival Sources

AHMP, sbírka fotografií, Výstava architektury a inženýrství – reprodukce půdorysného plánu [Collection of Photographs, Exhibition of Architecture and Engineering – reproduction of a ground plan], sign. VI 73/30, permalink: https://katalog.ahmp.cz/pragapublica/permalink?xid=A0C4FECAB67611DF820F00166F1163D4&scan=1#scan1

Anonymous author, Slavnostní zahájení výstavy architektury a inženýrství, Národní listy XXXVIII, 1898, no. 163, 15. 6., pp. 2–4

Anonymous author, Z výstavy české technické, Obnova IV, 1898, no. 27, 8. 7., p. 4

Anonymous author, Panorama na výstavě architektů a inženýrů v Praze, Fotografický obzor VI, 1898, no. 3, 10. 3., pp. 40–41

Anonymous author, Výstava architektury a inženýrství v Praze 1898, Národní listy XXXVIII, 1898, no. 113, 24. 4., p. 2

Anonymous author, Výstava architektury a inženýrství v Praze 1898. Neděle na výstavě, Národní listy XXXVIII, 1898, no. 175, 27. 6., p. 2

Anonymous author, Výstava architektury a inženýrství v Praze 1898, Katolické listy II, 1898, no. 154, 7. 6., p. 5; no. 156, 9. 6., p. 7; no. 159, 12. 6., pp. 4–5; no. 165, 18. 6., p. 5; no. 170, 23. 6., p. 5; no. 174, 27. 6., pp. 2–3; no. 177, 30. 6, p. 3; č, 181, 4. 7., p. 3; no. 182; 5. 7., p. 5; no. 187, 10. 7., pp. 4–5; no. 189, 12. 7., p. 5; no. 194, 17. 7., p. 5; no. 207, 30. 7., p. 5; no. 208, 31. 7., pp. 4–5; no. 222, 14.8., p. 8; no. 235, 28. 8., p. 6; no. 244, 6. 9., p. 5; no. 257, 19. 9., p. 3; no. 280, 12. 10., p. 5; no. 281, 13. 10., p. 5; no. 284, 16. 10., p. 5, no. 286, 18. 10., pp. 4–5

Anonymous author, Výstava architektury a inženýrství v Praze, Česká škola, 1898, no. 19, 20. 6., p. 298; no. 21, 10. 7., p. 332

Anonymous author, Výstava architektury a inženýrství v Praze 1898., Národní listy XXXVIII, 1898, no. 259, 20. 9., p. 2

Anonymous author, Výstava architektury a inženýrství v Praze. Generální výbor výstavy architektury a inženýrství, Národní listy XXXVIII, 1898, no. 138, 20. 5., p. 2

Anonymous author, Výstava architektury a inženýrství v Praze. Zakončení výstavy, Národní listy XXXVIII, 1898, no. 287, 18. 10., p. 2

Anonymous author, Výstava architektury a inženýrství, Epocha III, 1898, no. 10, 15. 17., pp. 214–219; no. 11, 15. 8., pp. 235–237; no. 12, 15. 9., pp. 249–250; Epocha IV, 1898, no. 1, 15. 10., p. 12

Anonymous author, Výstava architektury a inženýrství v Praze roku 1898. Hlas národa, 1898, no. 139, 21. 5., p. 1; no. 142, 24. 5., p. 1; no. 143, 25. 5., p. 1

Anonymous author, Výstava architektury a inženýrství v Praze, Právo lidu VII, 1898, no. 175, 26. 6., p. 3; no. 187, 8. 7., p. 3; no. 200, 21. 7., p. 3; š. 227, 18. 8., p. 7; no. 246, 6. 9., p. 2, 7; no. 247, 7. 9., p. 7; no. 249, 9. 9., p. 7; no. 255, 15. 9., p. 7; no. 266, 26. 9., p. 3; no. 267, 27. 9., p. 3; no. 273, 3. 10., p. 4; no. 282, 12. 10., p. 6. etc.

B. K., Výstava architektury a inženýrství, Technický obzor VI, 1898, no. 3, 31. 1., p. 28; no. 7, 10. 3., p. 59

Ka., Výstava architektury a inženýrství, Technický obzor VI, 1898, no. 14, 20. 5., pp. 132–133; no. 15, 31. 5, pp. 141–143