Databáze uměleckých výstav v českých zemích 1820 – 1950

Modelled on the housing shows in Stuttgart (1927) and Brno (1928), the exhibition of family houses in Prague's Baba was open to the public for a brief period, giving viewers a chance to see the houses' interiors. The building was overseen by the Czechoslovak Arts and Crafts Association (Svaz československého díla), which purchased the lots and organized an architectural competition for each of the houses. Unlike the exhibition in Stuttgart where the city was the investor and in Brno where all the houses were built by a private developer, the houses at Baba were all financed by their future owners, who had a say in the final results; the houses were not simply the realization of an architect's vision. For this reason, the Baba show contained only family houses. In the show's catalogue, the leftist-oriented architect Oldřich Starý explains with a touch of regret that no investor was found for either the proposed typified row houses or a rental apartment building, such as the one built in Stuttgart, that would serve the working classes. The Baba colony was thus reserved for the middle-class inteligentsia. The owners were required to join the Czechoslovak Arts and Crafts Association, choose an architect for their house among the association's members, and commit to maintaining the basic overall concept; this ensured the colony's unified spirit.

The urban plan was designed by Pavel Janák who modified the earlier regulation plan by adding two streets, which followed the contour lines of the hill's gentle slope. The individual houses had a rectangular ground plan with the longer side facing the street and they were arranged in a chessboard pattern so that each house had an unobstructed view. The landscaping of public spaces (designed by the architect Otokar Fierlinger who also co-designed some of the private gardens) had a unified look with matching fences and paving. The houses were designed based on functionalist principles: cubic volumes with smooth, unadorned surfaces, flat roofs, large-format windows, glass south-facing  facades and an intimate relationship with the garden which, wherever the terrain allowed, served as the apartment's outdoor extension. Roof terraces were a common element. The majority of the houses were two-storey, with some three-storey houses containing basements partly embedded in the sloped terrain. The interiors usually consisted of a large sitting room that could be also used as a dining room or an office, a well-arranged kitchen and, on the second floor, small bedrooms (referred to as sleep cubicles at the time) and a bathroom with a toilet, spacious and directly lit in line with the modern emphasis on hygiene. For practical reasons, the effort to systematically employ prefabrication was limited to a few constructional elements. The most original work came from the only foreign architect, Mart Stam of the Netherlands, who designed a structure raised above the terrain by way of pilotis. The architect Hana Kučerová-Záveská designed the largest house in the colony. Ladislav Žák is the best represented architect at Baba – his three elegant family houses gained him recognition and lead to further commissions, such as the famous Hain villa.

Immediately before the exhibition was opened in September 1932, the colony contained 20 finished or almost-finished structures with 13 more houses added by 1936. Viewing the exhibition meant walking through a construction site among houses in various degree of completion. During the seven days when the show was open, the visitors could see some of the interior parts of the yet-to-be-inhabited houses or observe the naked construction in the unfinished ones. The exhibition was viewed by over 12,000 visitors. One year later, viewings of newly completed houses were organized once a week. The show received a lively response in professional and popular periodicals. Although appreciating its modern ideas, both conservative and leftist (Karel Teige) reviewers criticized the show for its focus on the needs of the wealthy social strata.

The housing exhibition in the Baba colony, where the houses themselves were the artifacts on display, became one of the most comprehensive examples of functionalist housing in Czechoslovakia. With its original character and design extraordinarily well-preserved, Baba's significance reaches far beyond its local context.

Petr Kratochvíl

Works cited

Rostislav Švácha, Osada Baba, Umění XXVIII, 1980, pp. 368–379

Tomáš Šenberger – Vladimír Šlapeta – Petr Urlich, Osada Baba. Plány a modely, Prague 2000

Stephan Templ, Baba – Osada Svazu Čs. díla Praha, Prague 2000

Petr Ulrich – Vladimír Šlapeta – Alena Křížková, Slavné vily Prahy 6; Osada Baba 1932-1936, Prague 2013