Reconstruction of an apartment in the Artists' Cooperative House

There are few buildings in our country built in the 1950s whose atmosphere we would describe as inspiring. This is why we consider it exceptional to enter one of the flats of the original Cooperative House, built at that time by musicians and theatre artists. The personalities who lived there often transcended the confines of the typical work of the time. Many of their descendants still live here, and the sound of piano lessons and trombone playing still echoes through the concrete of the building. By referring to the aesthetics of the colourful simplicity of the late International Style, we want to preserve the more positive of its tones.

Once most of the estate was organized, the dark, uncluttered apartment could be opened up to the light from the windows in the opposite walls. We opened it up further to allow light to flow freely through the space, through the artist couple's rest and work areas, and into the kitchen at the centre of the layout. Here, instead of the original darkened hall, light and views from both sides of the house now meet. The bathroom continues behind a wall of tiles in pastel colours. Wooden bookcases in a similar colour further divide the apartment. The room, which has been stripped of its original division by the partitions, has been treated with lime plaster and the ceiling runs almost unbroken throughout. The clear glass of the ceiling lights further captures the changing light.

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  w: Petr Michálek, Lukáš Michálek (construction)
  Tomáš Dlabaja, Filip Dlabaja (carpenters)
  Aleš Vrtaňa (wooden floors and claddings)
  Jiří Pekárek (windows)
  photo: Alexandr Hudeček