Engineering workshops of the Czech State Technical School in Pilsen
1924–1926

In the vicinity of the building of the German State Industrial School (C6–1615), realised in the years 1915–1922 according to the design of Ludwig Tremmel, the Czechoslovak State Industrial School in Pilsen had workshops built for its engineering courses. The project of a one-story building located on a corner plot clasped by Majerova and Politických Vězňů Streets was created in 1923 by Vladimir Weingärtner, who was working at the technical college as a regular professor. The architect had originally designed a more decorative appearance of the facade –mingling elements of late Art Nouveau and geometric Modernism with bare brick surfaces, which were typical of Weingärtner’s other buildings from the 1920s (C2–1798, C4–1763). Eventually, a simplified, fully plastered facade was opted for, however the articulated attics and mansard and hipped roofing of the side risalits remained.

The layout of the building departs from the rounded corner into which the architect placed the entrance hall with an adjoining half-turn staircase. In addition to working material storage areas and a forge, the left wing of the building on the ground floor also contained the offices of professors and masters, while the first floor housed a joiner’s workshop and smaller workshops; on both floors of the right wing there were washrooms and changing rooms for students, a laboratory and further small shops. On the courtyard facade, a single-story main workshop hall with roof skylights, equipped with modern machinery including an overhead crane supplied by the Škoda Works, was attached to the building. The other parts of the hall were a turning room and an engine room, adjoined by the boiler room with a monumental, now defunct factory chimney. The extensive workshop complex on the ground floor also included residential space, namely two one-bedroom and one two-bedroom apartment, all with separate entrances from the courtyard. During construction, a steam-water canal was established linking the workshop with the building of the school, which has served solely engineering fields ever since its first opening; the civil engineering department has used a new building on Chodské Square since 1920 (C3–1585).

Although in the following decades the building, still used by the Secondary School of Engineering today, has undergone a number of structural modifications, the exterior has retained its authentic form despite numerous parts of plaster falling off.

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