Apartment building for employees of Czechoslovak Radio
1947–1949

Shortly after its establishment in 1945, Czechoslovak Radio’s Pilsen station began dealing with the issue of acquiring appropriate, technically well-equipped spaces for broadcasting, as well as securing housing for its employees and their families. It was decided in 1946 to announce an architectural competition for the new radio building (C3–2363) on the square Náměstí Míru and a year later the construction of the residential house was launched on the nearby site at No. 28 Čechova Street in the context of the state “two-year plan” for renewal. The building work was assigned to the Pilsen building firm of Václav Hajšman, who owned a number of neighbouring houses in Čechova and Klostermannova Street. Following the communist seizure of power in February 1948, however, the construction work was taken over by the local branch of the state construction enterprise Československý stavební závod PL-526, which completed it in May 1949.

The two buildings initiated by Czechoslovak Radio are among a handful of postwar projects implemented in Pilsen in which the architectural style builds on interwar Functionalism and is characterised by simplicity, austerity and a compact layout. The “purist” character of the facade stands out especially in contrast with the adjacent apartment houses, the facades of which are broken up by shallow projecting sections, string courses and other relief features. The facade of this building, on the contrary, is relieved only by the central vertical band of glass panes through which light pours into the stairwell and the contrasting horizontals of ribbon windows on both sides of it. On the basement level, the facade is clad with ceramic tiles.

The house has an unconventional three-section layout, with two mirror reversed, three-room flats on each floor, each with a small kitchen, bathroom and toilet and a courtyard-facing loggia. Located under the flat roof of the residential part of the loft are two modest studio flats. The street-side section, on the contrary, was given a traditional pitched roof in order to correspond in height and shape to the adjacent buildings (houses Nos. 30–36).

Unfortunately, during a recent replacement of windows in the main facade, the original vertical arrangement of the windows of the stairwell was not properly respected, which disturbed the proportions of the building and detracted from its overall architectural appearance.

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