Villa of Helena and Emil Wollner
1932–1933

In the early 1930s, Emil Wollner, a sales representative of West Bohemian Kaolin Factories, chose a site in the heart of the villa district Bezovka, on the circular plaza Na Hvězdě, for the construction of his own house. For the design of the villa, this influential businessman decided to hire the then thirty-year-old Prague architect Gustav Paul, who, among other things, was a co-author of the Pilsen Police Directorate building on Anglické nábřeží from the years 1937–1939 (C1–1778), and the Pilsen building company of Josef Špalek sr. The client’s interest in contemporary architecture is illustrated by the fact that in 1934 he ordered a portal to his own shop from the Pilsen architect Leo Meisl in house no. 12 on Klatovská Avenue, which was owned by the Friedler family and where two Loos interiors were realised – for the married couples Beck (see C3–1076) and Vogl (C2–455).

In accordance with principles of what was known as Scientific Functionalism, Gustav Paul designed for Wollner a three-storey building of austere cubic shapes with a flat roof. With regard to the purpose of individual rooms and the orientation of the house according to the cardinal points, the plain facades were broken up only by divided rectangular windows of various sizes. He located service areas including the garage on the low ground floor; a residential hall with an adjacent glazed veranda, a living room and a dining room were on the first floor. He broke up the mass of the second floor with the bedrooms with a patio. The house acquired visual lightness and a special esprit due to dark ceramic cladding of the ground floor, a reference to the professional background of the client.

The house has retained its original form until the present day, being an excellent example of a modern family house, with a design with which the architect accomplished the Functionalist motto of form following function.

LV

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