Publications

Bruno Bauer and the Industrial Architecture in the Czech Lands

In the Czech lands designing factories accompanied global advances in the development of economic and technical knowledge and experience. The direction this work took was determined by specialised design offices capable of designing the right operational plan, corresponding spatial layout, and construction design that was financially realisable while still meeting the demands placed on the physical appearance of the final work.

The textile industry was a key sector in this development, and its spatial layout and safety requirements gave rise to the first buildings that from this perspective can be regarded as modern. In Central Europe the direct contact with advanced British experience in designing spinning mills has been little documented to date. In the late 19th century this experience was brought to the region mainly by the Swiss office of Carl Arnold Séquin-Bronner (later Séquin & Knobel), but other firms operating in the Czech lands included the Leipzig-based office of Händel & Franke and from 1877 – and a Czech source of competition in the field – the office of builder František Plesnivý in Náchod and Hradec Králové. The first ‘technical office’ for the construction of breweries was founded in Prague in 1863 by Gustav Noback and two years later the second by Josef Vincenc Novák, and as well as drawing up projects and budgets, they also began to offer machinery from their own machine works. The machine works of Vinzenz Daněk and the building company of Václav Nekvasil jointly began designing and building sugar refineries. Jihlava native Josef Rosenberg was in 1873 evidently the first Czech builder to focus exclusively on the construction of industrial buildings, which he also designed, and he specialised in particular in fermenting houses and ice cellars for breweries. All-round success in this section was above all achieved by the building and design firm of Viktor Beneš, founded in Prague in 1887. At the start of the century the designing of industrial buildings was largely taken over by building companies that specialised in working with reinforced concrete. The design department of the firm of Eduard Ast in Vienna, which was the concession-holder (concessionaire) for using the Hennebique system, was headed by Ast’s brother-in-law Hugo Gröger, who published a series of executed industrial buildings which, at least from 1906, had their reinforced concrete frames exposed on the façade. A little later industrial buildings also began to be designed and built by another Viennese firm, Pittel & Brausewetter, and then too by B. Fischmann & Co. of Brno. However, many factories in the Czech lands were the outcome of collaboration between the civil engineers that worked for building companies (Skorkovský, Müller & Kapsa), the mechanical engineers working for the suppliers of machinery, the operations experts of the contracting party, and sometimes architects. The first generation of architects who regularly worked on industrial buildings in Austria-Hungary were trained by Karl König at the Technische Hochschule in Vienna, and two of those most successful in practice, and in their own teaching work, were Leopold Simony and Heinrich Fanta. One after another in 1908 students of Wagner caught the industrial- architecture bug, but the only ones who progressed to create genuinely complex designs for industrial structures were Hubert Gessner and his brother Franz and above all Bohumil Hypšman. By this time there were also branches in the Czech lands of companies that delivered comprehensive projects for buildings in every production sector. Alongside several buildings designed by the Stuttgart office of Philipp Jakob Manz, works by Heinrich Zieger, based initially in Zittau, also warrant highlighting, as do those by the Frankfurt office of C. T. Steinert, which specialised exclusively in designing buildings for the leather industry.

The most successful Austro-Hungarian office was established in Prague in 1908 by Bruno Bauer (1880–1938). By 1911 he had relocated to Vienna, where the second generation of Austro-Hungarian factory-owners were meeting up at that time, both locals and those running factories in other industrial centres of the Monarchy. Bauer’s importance did not escape the attention of Austrian art-historical (Renate Wagner-Rieger), topographic (Ute Georgeacopol-Winischhofer) and biographic (Inge Schiedl) literature, nor did his buildings in Vienna and Lower Austria, but the major part of his work is located on the territory of what was then the Czech lands. The archives of Bauer’s design office are now likely lost, and the documents and materials for the individual structures he designed are scattered among different relevant construction and business archives. Many of these documents were published in Austrian and German engineering periodicals and even made their way into technical handbooks and textbooks. He himself claimed that by 1930 he had worked on more than 380 projects, but to date only 75 buildings or production sites (of which 14 are no longer in existence) have been reliably identified. Bauer used reinforced concrete frames in a whole range of building types: He created uniquely designed multi-storey buildings for wool factories in Brno, Krnov in Silesia, and the North Bohemian town of Kralice, shed structures, for example, for the textile factories in Brněnec and a weaving mill that manufactured curtains in Sankt Polten, and framework-structure halls for the machine works in the North Bohemian town of Tanvald and the Styrian town of Weiz. In 1915–1916, for the Austro-Hungarian Ministry of War, Bauer designed a series of strategically important plants producing nitrates for military production, of which the only ones that have survived to date in their authentic structural state are a series of buildings in what is now Mosonmagyarovar, which used plasma technology to obtain nitrogen from air. A similarly complex work of construction Bauer designed for the textile industry the now only partially preserved textile factory he created for the Berlin-based joint-stock company Deutsche Wollwaren-Manufaktur, built in 1923–1924 in the Lower-Silesian town of Zielona Gora. However, a typical branch of work that Bauer engaged in during the postwar period was the reorganisation of existing industrial production sites, replenishing them with the addition of a new building in which he concentrated the preparatory and finishing steps in the production process, which had prior to that been scattered among multiple different buildings – examples of this are the multi-storey buildings he designed in Brno and Červeny Kostelec that have survived in their authentic state. Such investments in modernisation also often took the form of detached buildings for textile dyeworks, for which purpose in 1912 Bauer devised a special hollow, pre-heated, reinforced-concrete ventilation roof for dispersing fog. Bauer introduced innovations in the spatial layout of reinforced structures, but especially in the method by which they were reinforced. He expanded on the concept of rigid, self-bearing reinforcement devised by his teacher, Josef Melan, and Melan’s older student Friedrich Ignaz Emperger (1862–1942), who in 1902–1908 had developed a method using a ‘column of hollow cast-iron section encased in hooped concrete’, which was used in practice on a larger scale for the first time in 1913 by Bauer himself in the construction of workshops for the Swedish firm Ericsson in Meidling near Vienna. In the 1920s Bauer progressed to structural frames in which most of the load is supported by prefabricated columns with cast-iron cores, encased in concrete shells by steel bracing wires, while the girders and beams were cast in an assembled self-supporting casing of perforated sheet-metal that also served as their reinforcement. Bauer also engaged in political and professional activities: He promoted Richard Coudenhove-Kalergi’s idea of a union of European states, in 1925 he founded the Austrian branch of the Federation Internationale des Ingenieurs-Conseils (FIDIC), and in 1931–1934 he held the office of President of the Chamber of Engineers for Vienna, Lower Austria, and the Burgenland.

In 1914 Bauer gave a lecture in Vienna titled ‘The Problem of Industrial Construction’, which was not just a proclamation on behalf of the profession of industrial architect, but was also a reaction to the Werkbund exhibition in Cologne and its Almanac published the year before – and which was thus also a foray into the contemporary debate on the relationship between engineering and architecture. While Peter Behrens and Walter Gropius in terms of theory and especially in practice tied in with the custom of engaging architects to refine engineering structures, Hermann Muthesius maintained his defence of the creative skills of engineers, directed at a concept of Sachlich architecture that facilitates a synthesis of art and technology. It is understandable that Bauer sided with Muthesius – like him, he too regarded the architect im guten alten Sinne as an all-round, versatile Leonardo da Vinci, promoted unity of all the building-arts, and dismissed style-architecture, though not Classical formal rules. He thus became a successor in the line of empirical architectural thought grounded in practice. Mitchel Schwarzer traces this line in German-language architectural theory as proceeding from Schinkel and especially Botticher’s Tectonic theory, and labels it the realistic line. A related concept was formulated around the same time by Kenneth Frampton, who placed Perrault at the inception of his ‘tectonic culture’. If Bauer defined an industrial structure as a ‘routing diagram in stone and iron’, then ‘stone and iron’ are here what represent the link to that empirical tectonic tradition, and designing based on a ‘routing diagram’ is then the most advanced and scientifically based method of designing factories, a method that Bauer in his own way advanced.

While the practices and theoretical viewpoints that prevailed in the European industrial designing offices in subsequent periods still need to be studied further, it can be assumed that the methods that advanced most were those based on teamwork. Bruno Bauer, as the one author behind the operational, structural, and architectural designs of his industrial structures, was clearly the last of his kind.

Summary translated by Robin Cassling

 

The publication represents an outcome of the project Industrial Architecture: Understanding Monuments of Industrial Heritage as Technical-Architectural Works and as a Source of Identity of a Place supported by the Ministry of Culture of the Czech Republic under its NAKI II (National and Cultural Identity) Applied Research Programme (DG16P02H001)

 

Lukáš Beran, Bruno Bauer and the Industrial Architecture in the Czech Lands, Prague 2016.

128 pages; Czech/summary in English and German; 133 images and plans; ISBN 978-80-01-05992-0 / author Lukáš Beran / index of places Irena Lehkoživová / proofreading Hana Hlušičková / scientific review Pavel Halík, Petr Urlich / translation Robin Cassling, Susanne Spurná / graphic design Jan Forejt / typesetting Formall / print PBtisk / published by the Research Centre for Industrial Heritage FA CTU Prague

 

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Zbůch 2015. Rediscovering the Mining Landscape

Publication is based on the results of interdisciplinary workshop Zbůch 2015 or Vision for rediscovery of miner´s culture area in the Pilsen region, which was held in October and November 2015.

Its aim was to search for ways of development and vision direction for transforming the micro region of Western Bohemian coalfield and its centre – municipality Zbůch. Even though black coal was mined there for more than 400 years, Pilsen coal-field has always been in the background of Kladno and Ostrava region. After a long period of being closely linked to coal mining activities and subsequently after damping dawn and finally after closing dawn coal mining completely, this region at present is going through a process of looking for a new identity. Gradually disappearing traces of strongly industrial landscape are in contrast with absence of further vision. The publication presents different approaches in searching for identity of the place on local as well as regional level.

The workshop and this publication were organised and prepared as part of work on the project ‘Industrial Heritage as a Focal Point in the Cultural Landscape’ (project coordinator Petra Boudová) supported by grant no. SGS15/219/OHK/3T/15. The book is published with the support of the Faculty of Architecture of the CTU in Prague.

 

Jakub Bacík – Lukáš Beran – Petra Boudová – Benjamin Fragner – Veronika Kastlová – Štefan Molnár – Petr Vorlík – Jan Zikmund (eds.), Zbůch 2015. Rediscovering the Mining Landscape, Prague 2015.

156 pages; czech, english; 148 color images and plans; ISBN 978-80-01-05855-8 / workshop organised and book edited by Jakub Bacík, Lukáš Beran, Petra Boudová, Benjamin Fragner, Veronika Kastlová, Štefan Molnár, Petr Vorlík, Jan Zikmund / chapters by Jakub Bacík, Lukáš Beran, Petra Boudová, Benjamin Fragner, Veronika Kastlová, Lucie Jonášová, Marcel Tomášek, Petr Vorlík / projects by Zuzana Bečvářová, Inés Brotons Borrell, Lucie Divišová, Veronika Dolejšová, Jiřina Dvořáková, Markéta Ekrtová, Tanya Galchenya, Lennert Hupkes, Jakub Křička, Matúš Kúdeľa, Savka Marenić, Emmanuelle Metz, Radomír Paulus, Clémentine Peturkenne, Lucie Pňačková, Kateřina Pojarová, Simona Popadić, Lele Song, Romana Šteflová, Jitka Tomiczková, Katerina Vlachmpei, Lucie Vopičková, Klára Žídková, Lukáš Žitný / oral testimony provided by Václav Kraus, Reinhold Pluhař, Václav Straka, Josef Vostárek / movie Veronika Kastlová, Jiří Kůs / expert reviewer Jiří Palacký / translation by Robin Cassling, Veronika Kastlová, Jana Kinská / graphic design and typesetting by Jan Zikmund / technical support provided by Jan Forejt, Gabriel Fragner, Jiří Klíma / tisk Formall CWS / published by Výzkumné centrum průmyslového dědictví Fakulty architektury ČVUT v Praze

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Industrial Topography. Industrial Heritage and the Participation of Academic Community

Methodology maps the fundamental possibilities of participation, how to engage academic community in the process of documentation, evaluation, education and industrial heritage conservation.

Observes the strategies, verified by long experience of the Research Centre for Industrial Heritage CTU, since its establishment in 2002, continuing at the Faculty of Architecture in the framework of the project NAKI since 2011. The methodology clearly summarizes recommendations for the work on thematically focused publications and database systems, the organization of research activities, professional meetings, as well as student workshops, competitions and exhibitions. These recommendations are divided into proven procedural steps, based on the specifics of the topic of industrial heritage  from initial preparations, through main activities and the progress, to the final analysis and the wide range of publications in the most appropriate, understandable and powerful form. The methodology is intended for researchers, educators and enthusiasts interested in industrial heritage who work at universities with a focus on architecture, civil engineering or historic research, but also for architects, State Institute for the Care of Historical Monuments, museums and civic associations.

 

Petr Vorlík, Industrial Topography. Industrial Heritage and the Participation of Academic Community (certified methodology), Prague 2015.

80 pages; Czech; scientific reviewers Eva Dvořáková, Naděžda Goryczková / proofreading Vlasta Popelová / graphic design Jan Zikmund / print Formall CWS / published by the Research Centre for Industrial Heritage FA CTU Prague

Download link here (pdf, 880 kb)

 

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Industrial Topography / The Architecture of Conversion

The publication presents an overview of selected industriál buildings and sites that were adapted to new uses between 2005 and 2015 and are characteristic for this period, including even controversial approaches. The selection was based on a comparison of materials in the database created for Industrial Topography of the Czech Republic and considers the results of a survey conducted by the Research Centre for Industrial Heritage of the Faculty of Architecture of the Czech Technical University.

Every conversion entails a change and an adaptation to a different function, an intervention into the integrity of a structure already marked by the demise of its original function. Architecture can be both the medium by which this change is executed and by which the qualities that can be tied in with are preserved, and above all the medium by which to articulate new ambitions or, of course, by which to petrify the limitations to further development imposed by the current era.

The publication represents an outcome of the project An Industrial Topography of the Czech Republic – Adapted New Uses of Industrial Heritage as a Part of National and Cultural Identity supported by the Ministry of Culture of the Czech Republic under its NAKI (National and Cultural Identity) Applied Research Programme (DF11P01OVV016) is published to coincide with an exhibition of the same name and with the support of Jaroslav Fragner Gallery, the Vestiges of Industry Platform, and the Technical Monuments Committee of the Czech Chamber of Certified Engineers and Technicians and the Czech Union of Civil Engineers.

 

Benjamin Fragner – Vladislava Valchářová, Industrial Topography / The Architecture of Conversion, Czech Republic 2005–2015, Prague 2014.

216 pages; Czech/English; 334 color images and plans; ISBN 978-80-01-05592-2 / authors Benjamin Fragner, Vladislava Valchářová / contributing editorial work Jan Zikmund, Lukáš Beran, Tomáš Skřivan, Petr Vorlík, Iva Dvořáková, Tomáš Krajčinovský, Anna Štefánková / proofreading Hana Hlušičková / scientific review Pavel Halík, Svatopluk Zídek / translation Robin Cassling / graphic design Jan Forejt / dtp Formall / print HRG Litomyšl / published by the Research Centre for Industrial Heritage FA CTU Prague to coincide with an exhibition of the same name and with the support of Jaroslav Fragner Gallery, the Vestiges of Industry Platform, and the Technical Monuments Committee of the Czech Chamber of Certified Engineers and Technicians and the Czech Union of Civil Engineers

Download link here (pdf, 37 MB)

Industrial Topography / Zlín Region (DVD)

The twelfth volume of Industrial Topography is devoted to the Zlín Region. DVD localizes 234 buildings and sites and contains 4 maps.

The DVD is part of a project carried out by the Research Centre for Industrial Heritage at the Faculty of Architecture of the Czech Technical University with the support of the Ministry of Culture’s programme of applied research on national and cultural identity (NAKI). Its objective is to map industrial heritage in the regions of the Czech Republic. It identifies values and draws attention to the heritage passed down from the industrial age and it seeks opportunities for their adapted new use.

 

Jan Zikmund (ed.), Industrial Topography / Zlín Region (DVD), Prague 2014.

Czech; ISBN 978-80-01-05552-6 / authors Lukáš Beran, Klára Brůhová, Veronika Fousková, Daniel Froněk, Benjamin Fragner, Anna Kašíková, Miroslav Kindl, Irena Lehkoživová, Linda Mašková, Štefan Molnár, Jan Pechánek, Jana Stará, Milan Starec, Vladislava Valchářová, Martin Vonka, Petr Vorlík, Filip Vrána, Jan Zikmund, Michal Zlámaný / DVD concept Petr Vorlík, René Bezvald / proofreading Blanka Kynčlová / scientific review Ladislav Buchta, Jan Štětina / graphic design Jan Forejt / published by the Research Centre for Industrial Heritage FA CTU Prague in conjunction with the Technical Monuments Committee of the Czech Chamber of Certified Engineers and Technicians and the Czech Union of Civil Engineers and the Association of Historical Settlements in Bohemia, Moravia and Silesia

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