Villa Traub (Prague)
The Villa Traub ( Czech Traubova Vila or Vila Edmunda Trauba ) is a villa in the Střešovice district of Prague built for the leather manufacturer Edmund Traub in 1928/29 according to plans by Bruno Paul in the style of classical modernism . The Jewish manufacturing family Traub fled to the occupation of Prague by the Nazis to London . After the Second World War the villa was nationalized and in the post-war period it was the seat of diplomatic missions , among others. a. the commercial agency of the GDR in the ČSSR .
The Hungarian embassy has been located in Villa Traub since the Czech Republic joined the European Union . The building and the garden are protected as a cultural monument.
Building history
At the end of the 1920s, the industrialist Edmund Traub, who owned a leather factory in Prague-Podbaba, planned to build a modern family home on the outskirts of Prague. Originally, Traub had commissioned an architect from Prague with the planning. After his sudden death, the Berlin architect Bruno Paul was commissioned to design and build the house with garages and a tennis court. Bruno Paul visited Prague several times and then drafted the plans for the house and the gardens. He left the completion of the construction documents to Egon Votický, who later also monitored the construction progress.
Located near the Prague Castle property located in a sought after residential area overlooking the northern part of Prague Bubeneč proved by building her very difficult. Large areas of the steeply sloping corner property was an overburden dump on the newly built street adjacent to the south. The terrain had height differences of up to 12 meters. Bruno Paul took advantage of the difference in height for a strictly functional division of the house.
The immediate neighborhood between Ořechovka, Dejvice and Hradčany was characterized by Mannerist and neoclassical mansions at the time . Normally, the building regulations provided for a maximum of two-storey development in this villa area. Paul designed a two- or three-storey, rectangular structure in reinforced concrete with an additional, indented, darkly offset attic in order to harmoniously compensate for the height differences in the property. In order not to exceed the stipulated maximum construction height, Paul suggested the construction of the roof as a flat roof , which aroused violent rejection and protests in the neighborhood during the construction phase and earned the building the nickname "cigar box".
The square, dark green wooden windows on the upper floors are arranged in horizontal stripes, which are one of the characteristic features of the New Building . The windows on the main floor, on the other hand, were made almost room-high so that as much light as possible penetrates the living rooms.
The Traub family moved into the villa during the construction phase in 1928. After the house was originally plastered white in the style of modern architecture, Bruno Paul decided later for a facing of the building with large sheets of Cretaceous Hořice - sandstone . The natural stone facades were completed in 1929.
After Prague was occupied by the National Socialists, the Jewish Traub family fled to London in 1938 . After the end of World War II , the family initially returned to Prague, but were forced to leave the country again in 1948. The Traub family received English citizenship in August 1948 . The family villa was nationalized and was the seat of various diplomatic missions in the period that followed .
Despite many renovations, numerous parts of the original, exceptionally high-quality interior in the contrasting Art Nouveau style have been preserved throughout the building . The villa and the garden are classified as a characteristic example of “unique German purism” as “Architecturally significant building of category A”, No. 08078.
Interior architecture and design
On the lower north side, the site is accessed from Pod Hradbami Street . All sides of the property open to the public were delimited by a bar fence that was attached to a natural stone base made of sandstone. Almost three meters high, brick fence posts clad with sandstone slabs border the entrance gate with a separate pedestrian entrance. A lamp made up of three milk glass blocks was installed on the left post.
Access to the building from the inner courtyard is through a porch in an entrance hall . In the basement, which is half sunk in the ground, the cloakroom, toilets, technical rooms, laundry, garages for two vehicles and the chauffeur's service apartment on the east side were accommodated in addition to the entrance hall.
A bright and dark striped, shiny stone floor was laid in the entrance hall. The walls made of smoothed plaster were sprayed with white lacquer paint. Dark wooden furniture was combined with yellow-red-brown patterned upholstery fabrics. The cloakroom was integrated into built- in cupboards and the hall was visually enlarged with mirrored walls. Doors and stairs are made of dark walnut . The curved staircase, which leads continuously to the upper floor, has black polished handrails held in place by white metal supports.
The stairs lead to a spacious vestibule on the first floor . The carpeted floors of the stairwell with a pattern of brown-red, brown-yellow and light rectangles and the dark walnut furniture with color-coordinated upholstery fabrics form a strong contrast to the light-gray painted walls. The first floor closes off at ground level from the garden on the south side and thus compensates for a three meter height difference in the terrain. On this floor there is a large living hall that can be divided into three living and dining rooms connected by glass partitions, the sideboard, the kitchen, a master's room and a garden room.
The ceiling of the spacious, high living hall is supported by twelve visible concrete beams. The walls of the hall were covered with a light gray-yellow paint. The floor was covered with parquet made of light and dark, smoked oak , laid in wide strips , on which colorful, patterned woven carpets were placed. The functional furniture in the fireplace and living room was made of dark Caucasian walnut wood, which was combined with table lamps made of hand-blown, transparent glass and light fabric shades. By indenting a wall in the living room, space was created for an open fireplace , which was clad with dark, white grouted iron clinker bricks. Above the chimney hung a motto in the Czech language, made out of smoothed cement. The chimney was framed by two sandstone reliefs by the sculptor František Bžoch , depicting abstract scenes from a tannery . The living room merges into a dining room with wall decorations by Erika Baumgart-Peters. The dining table furniture was also made of dark walnut and the chairs were decorated with orange-yellow-brown patterned upholstery fabrics. In an alcove in the dining room was a smaller breakfast area. A sideboard connected the dining room with the kitchen on the north side . Above the white lacquered built-in kitchen in L-shape, wall cupboards with glass doors were set into the wall.
The walls of the master's room to the east of the floor were covered with lime green leather , and the floors were covered with patterned, brown rugs. The dark walnut cabinets were combined with large armchairs upholstered in lime green leather. The master's room leads into the garden room , which had a window that could be lowered into the floor and offered direct access to the garden. The ceiling of the garden room was clad with oxidized silver leaf . The seating in the room was painted gray-green and covered with yellow horsehair pillows. A yellow-patterned, woven carpet and gray-green-white curtains were decorated to match.
The walls of the workroom of Edmund Traub were with yellow Boxcalv based leather. All leather panels were made in the Traub factory. The doors and furniture in this room were also lined with light-colored leather. Selected works of art were exhibited in the living rooms, including sculptures by Jan Lauda and pictures by Isidor Kaufmann .
The second floor housed the family's private rooms, the bedrooms and dressing rooms, as well as two bathrooms. The walls of the bathrooms were lined with dark, contrasting marble. The original radiators and fittings were chrome-plated and formed a visual contrast to the dark marble. Two of the rooms have floral wall decorations by Erika Baumgart-Peters. In some rooms there are built-in cupboards that fill the entire side of the room. The glass doors of the cupboards were covered with fabric that was matched to the colors of the carpet. Most of the built-in wardrobes have been removed as part of renovation work. The original cupboards have only been preserved in the north-eastern corner room.
In the recessed attic, faced with dark clinker bricks, there were originally the rooms for the servants, the guest rooms with balconies, a bathroom and some storage rooms.
The house had central heating . In most of the rooms there were classic radiators, only in front of the large window facade to the garden was the heating sunk into the floor and covered at ground level with wooden gratings.
Garden and tennis court
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The layout of the garden followed Bruno Paul’s concept of a “garden room”. The garden forms a large open area in front of the main south facade of the house. The southern boundary of the property is formed by a wall followed by a densely planted slope, which compensates for the great differences in height in the area and is separated from the lawn by low natural stone walls. Gravel-strewn paths were laid out around the lawn and through the hillside garden.
The five-meter-wide and 200-square-meter south-facing terrace in front of the representative living spaces consists of rectangular slabs of different sizes made of Božanov sandstone from the Cretaceous period with four-centimeter-wide grassy joints. Low sandstone statues by the Jewish sculptor Bernhard Reder , who emigrated from Prague in 1937 , were placed on the terrace and along the garden paths.
To the west of the house, a tennis court was laid out at the level of the lawn , which is separated from the house by a pergola . The latticed pergola made of white lacquered cedar wood follows the abstract geometric structure of the house. On the east side of the villa, a lower pergola on a retaining wall delimits the terrace from the neighboring property.
Remodeling work
The villa has been redesigned several times for its use as the seat of diplomatic missions. However, essential details of the original interior have been preserved through the renovation work. The villa and the property were extensively renovated from 1992 to 1994 under the direction of Ladislav Kalivoda.
Between 2005 and 2007, the architect Ján Stempel and the landscape gardener Lucie Vogelová carried out extensive renovation work on the facade cladding, the terrace, the courtyard and the pergola. The courtyard was adapted to the requirements of an embassy and a second side entrance to the consular section from Pod Hradbami Street was created. An additional garage built in the courtyard for the embassy vehicles was clad with Hořice sandstone to create a visual unity with the main building. The former tennis court was covered with rectangular sandstone slabs made of Božanov sandstone and is now used as a parking lot for the embassy. The 210 square meter courtyard, which was concreted in places during previous renovations, has been paved. Stempel decided on a combination of paving stones measuring 10 × 10 centimeters and 35 centimeters wide, sandstone slabs made of Božanov sandstone that tapered vertically towards the house.
The wooden structures of the pergola on the east and west sides of the property, which had weathered over time, were also reconstructed and then planted with climbing plants. The planting of the slope was thinned out, supplemented and the green areas returned to their original character.
literature
- Bruno Paul: House Traub near Prague. In: Interior decoration: the cozy home; the entire art of living in pictures and words. Volume 46, Issue 4, 1935, pp. 112-126.
- Alexandra Křížová, Kateřina Hubrtová, Hedvika Křížová Nejedlá: Meziválečná architektura Střešovic - Mene známa tvář Prahy 6. In: Meziválečná architektura Střešovic - Městská část Praha 6 ve spolupráci s Národním památkovým ústavem, ú. op v hl. městě Praze. Prague 2010, ISBN 978-80-87220-10-8 , pp. 18f. (Czech)
- Přemysl Veverka, Radomíra Sedláková, Dita Dvořáková, Petr Krajči, Zdeněk Lukeš, Pavel Vlček: Great Villa of Prague . Prague 2009, ISBN 978-80-87073-01-8 , pp. 122f. (English)
Web links
- Scheufler Collection: Interior and exterior photos of Villa Traub in 1930 and 1932 by Jaroslav Bruner-Dvořák
- Reconstruction of the Villa Traub
- slavnevily.cz: Traubova Vila in Czech
- novinky.cz: Traubova vila nebyla moc oblíbená, přezdívalo se jí krabice na doutníky in Czech
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b c d e Vila Traub. In: http://www.revuekamen.cz/ . Retrieved August 7, 2019 .
- ↑ a b c d e f g h Vila Edmunda Trauba. In: http://www.bydleni-iq.cz/ . Retrieved August 7, 2019 (Czech).
- ↑ Traubova vila nebyla moc oblíbená, přezdívalo se jí krabice na doutníky - Novinky.cz. Retrieved August 7, 2019 .
- ↑ Traubova vila, Praha - SlavneVily.cz. Retrieved August 8, 2019 .
- ↑ Bruno Paul: House Traub near Prague . In: interior decoration . tape 46 , no. 4 , 1935, pp. 112 .
- ↑ Radomíra Sedláková: Part 14: Architektonický cenné stavby a soubory. (PDF) City of Prague, 2007, accessed on August 9, 2019 (Czech).
- ↑ a b c d e f g h Bruno Paul: House Traub near Prague . In: Interior decoration: my home, my pride; the entire art of living in pictures and words . tape 46 , no. 4 , 1935, pp. 112-126 .
Coordinates: 50 ° 5 ′ 42.2 ″ N , 14 ° 23 ′ 28 ″ E