Karel Pecánek

The architect and conservationist Karel Pecánek was born in Prague's Vinohrady district on the 9th of July 1877. In the years 1904–1909, he studied at the Faculty of Civil Engineering of the Czech Technical University in Prague. After completing a private architectural internship, he began teaching at a technical college in Brno. From 1919 on, he was employed at the National Heritage Institute on the Supreme Council for Educational Services. In his profession, he participated in the rescue of a number of architectural monuments – including the adaptation of the Czernin Palace in the Prague Castle district, the Monastery of St. Agnes, the castle in Velhartice and the Chapel of the Guardian Angels in Sušice.

In the 1920s, his texts and construction projects that were prevailingly Neo-Classicist in character were widely published in the magazines Stavitel / Master Builder, Styl / Style and Architekt SIA / Architect SIA. In Pilsen, Charles Pecánek played an important role in 1929–1930 – he successfully advocated the approval of the Modernist facade of the Functionalist apartment building with shops of Růžena Holcbechrová (C1–202). He also participated on the final form of the façade in collaboration with the architect and the author of the project, František Holcbechr.

Karel Pecánek died on the 25th of June 1944 in Prague.

AK

1912
Unrealised competition design of the Trade–Craft Culture House in Pardubice

1922 
Design of a new opera house in Prague (together with Ladislav Machoň and Alois Kubíček)

1923
Proposal of the Prague – Lesser Town regulation (together with František Fiala and Vladimír Wallenfels)
Design of a new State Gallery building (together with Alois Kubíček and Alois Mezera)

1924–1930
Ministry of Finance, 525/III. Letenská Street, Prague – Lesser Town (together with František Roith)

1930
Reconstruction of St. Bartholomew’s Church belfry, Pardubice

1931–1932
Rear wings of house no. 368, Na Tržišti, Prague – Lesser Town

1931
House no. 758/XVIII U páté baterie 13, Prague-Střešovice

1935
Completion of synagogue no. 14/V, Prague-Josefov

1938
Participated in a competition to design the completion of the Old Town Hall in Prague