Institute for Deaf and Dumb Children
1930–1931 / 1946

Probably in 1925, Pilsen city officials began to discuss announcing a public architectural competition for a new institute for deaf and dumb children. Unfortunately, no concrete information about the course or outcome of this competition has been preserved. We know, however, that the assignment was taken on by the talented young architect Václav Neckář, who created what was at that time in Pilsen a very progressive design, which he presented in the same year at an exhibition of the Association of West Bohemian Visual Artists (SZVU).

The institute for deaf and dumb children was ultimately erected in 1930–1931 on Benešovo náměstí (Beneš Square), today called Náměstí Míru, by the Pilsen builder Rudolf Pěchouček, according to plans by the municipal architect Hanuš Zápal. The design represented in the architect’s work, which up to the late 1920s fluctuated between conservative Modernism and sober Art Deco, one of the first examples of application of Functionalist morphology, fully developed by Zápal in his subsequent designs – the excellent Luděk Pik State School (1930–1931) and his own house in Pilsen at No. 5 and 7 Křížkova Street (C8–42).

The building served its purpose up to the end of WWII. In 1946 the local builder Otakar Prokop adapted the whole complex to the requirements of the Pilsen branch of Charles University’s Faculty of Medicine, with ocular, neurological, ENT and dental departments. Unfortunately, due to the absence of the original blueprints it is not possible today to compile a detailed description of either the exterior or interior. We can at least get a basic picture on the basis of Prokop's incomplete 1946 plans.

The four-storey building (then already Purkyně Pavilion), with an irregular ground plan, was composed of an amalgamation of several parts: facing 17. listopadu Street the main, longitudinal building with an elevated entrance, from the mass of which a building with a regular square ground plan partly extended on the left. A simple cube was also abutted to the right-hand side of the main building, jutting out considerably in front of its facade. Another four-storey longitudinal wing abutting the central building extended into the courtyard. Most probably the entire complex had flat roofs and smoothly rendered facades with symmetrically arranged windows (in the main building perhaps also paired windows evoking ribbon windows). In 1947, Karel Tausenau and his partners complemented the Functionalist volumes of Purkyně Pavilion with their design of the elaborate masses of the adjacent late Functionalist Czechoslovak (now Czech) Radio building (C3–2363).

Technical facilities continued to be situated in the basement of the former institute along with storage spaces, kitchens, a laundry and drying room, workshops, cloakrooms and even a small pool. The mezzanine with an expansive entrance lobby, accessed from the street by a high flight of steps, contained the reception area, the janitor’s flat and an auditorium. On the right was situated a casualty department and waiting room, operating theatres, a darkroom, laboratory and the offices of the doctors and chief-of-staff, while the rear wing was assigned to nurses’ stations, essential hygienic facilities and separate inpatient wards for men and women. The other floors also contained a similar composition of facilities, offices and hospital departments, including operating theatres and inpatient wards.

During the postwar years the building grew quite spontaneously (superstructures were added to the main building and the rear wing) and was adapted to the requirements of a modern medical facility. Neither the blueprints or any other documentation of these interventions have been preserved and therefore they cannot be dated accurately. In recent times Purkyně Pavilion underwent total reconstruction of its outer shell. The building was insulated and supplied with new windows with wide plastic frames. These none-too-sensitive modifications, also including a change in the colour of the facade, unfortunately mask the original architectural character of the building.

AK – PK 

Investor

Literature

Sources