Jaroslav Fišer

The architect Jaroslav Fišer was born in Velký Zdíkov in the Prachatice District on 5 March 1899 (just five years later his namesake was born in Liberec – he mostly worked as an architect in Prague). After secondary school in Písek, he studied at the Czech Technical University in Prague in the years 1918–1925, where he attended the studios of Jan Koula, Josef Fanta, Antonín Balšánek and, in particular, Antonín Engel, in whose design office he was employed during his studies (as part of this internship he participated, for example, in the project of the university campus in Dejvice). In 1925, he joined the TEKTA firm of the architect Oldřich Tyl, where among other things he worked on plans for the Trade Fair Palace in Prague Holešovice and the headquarters of the progressive organisation The Young Women’s Christian Association (YWCA) on Žitná Street in Prague (1929). After two years, Fišer left Tyl’s office and accepted a planning position at the Directorate of State Railways in Bratislava (where he prepared, among others, the design of this institution’s headquarters and the new train station in Bratislava).

In 1929, Jaroslav Fišer joined the civil engineering department of the Skoda factory in Pilsen, where he worked until he opened his own design office in 1931. He designed a number of industrial objects and residential buildings for Skoda Works – for example, new Skoda Works in Pilsen, Nýřany, in the Prague suburb of Smíchov, as well the factory building for aircraft production AVIA in Prague Letňany. Upon his arrival in the West Bohemian capital, Fišer became actively involved in the local social and artistic life. He joined the Association of West Bohemian Fine Artists and played an active part in organised exhibitions. The gifted architect belonged, together with Václav Neckář and Leo Meisl, to Pilsen’s younger generation of authors, who – unlike some of their older, more conservative colleagues – fully reflected the then-current trends on the national art scene and in whose work Functionalist morphology came to its full expression.

In the years 1930–1931, the representational wing of the Foreigners’ House in Pilsen Lochotín was built in accordance with Fišer’s draft. In the early 1930s, he also took part in the open call for the complex of buildings with the Elektra Cinema, and also prepared a competition proposal for the People's University of Jan Hus (LUH) on Denis Embankment.

The project LUH returned again in 1937; when a new location for building on Prokop Street was chosen a narrower competition was announced. Fišer’s proposal was not selected for the realisation on this occasion either. The most important position in the life and work of Jaroslav Fišer was occupied mainly by working for Pilsen’s Czech Brethren Evangelical Eastern Corps (called Korandův), probably because he was a member. He designed a complex of buildings for the choir between the English Embankment and Prokopová Street: the congregational prayer house (C1–2142) and two apartment buildings with small flats (C1–2219), which were realised by his own construction company in 1935/1936 and 1937/1938. The building of the Korandova Church is undoubtedly one of the highlights of Fišer’s work, rightly considered architecturally one of the most valuable buildings in inter-war Pilsen.

Alas, Jaroslav Fišer did not treat the city to a long period of creative output – the architect died suddenly on the 22nd of December 1938.

AK

1930
Apartment house with shops of the Pension Institute for officials of the Joint Stock Company in Pilsen (Škoda Works), Pilsen (unrealised)
Competition design of the complex of the Elektra Cinema, an apartment building and ASO department house, Pilsen (unrealised)

1930–1931
Representative wing of the Foreigners House, Pilsen–Lochotín

1932
The open call for the The People’s University of Jan Hus, Prokopova Street, Pilsen (unrealised)

1937
Design of a chapel, Dolní Lukavice (unrealised)

1938
Extension of the architect’s own house (offices), 27 Prokopova Street, Pilsen
Pavillion of Česká Zbrojovka Strakonice for the VI. Workers, Trade and Business Exhibition at the Municipal Exhibition Ground, Pilsen

1939
Czech Brethren’s Church, Dolní Bělá