Hotel Intercontinental v Praze: historie | urbanismus | architektura

Summary
Kateřina Houšková
This publication is one of the results of a Czech Ministry of Culture project which researches
and documents the heritage potential of architecture from the 1960s and 1970s. The book
has been conceived as a monograph focusing on one iconic Prague building – the Hotel InterContinental,
built in a brutalist style in the central part of the city.
The Hotel InterContinental was designed by a team of architects headed by Karel Filsak
from the ‘Epsilon’ studio at Prague’s municipal architectural institute. One of Czechoslovakia’s
most prominent architects, Filsak won widespread renown thanks to his numerous
designs for foreign embassies and (earlier) the offices of Czechoslovak Airlines. Working
directly under Filsak’s supervision, the core of the team involved in the design and construction
of the Hotel InterContinental consisted of the architects Karel Bubeníček and Jaroslav
Švec, in collaboration with Irma Dvořáčková (Steinocherová) and in the initial phase of the
project also with Jiří Gebert, who was later replaced by Václav Hacmac. Two more teams
were invited to create the hotel interiors. A team from the ‘Beta’ studio of Prague’s municipal
architectural institute was led by the architect Jan Šrámek and consisted of the architects
Jan Bočan, Zdeněk Rothbauer, Oldřich Novotný and Zbyněk Hřivnáč. The other interior
design team was headed by the architect František Cubr from the School of Architecture at
Prague’s Academy of Fine Arts, working with his long-term associates the architect Zdeněk
Pokorný and Cubr’s assistant at the Academy Zdeňka Nováková. The InterContinental project
involved a plethora of artists – even more than was usual for “normal” public buildings.
The façades and the interiors were designed with great care and unprecedented attention
to the smallest details.
In view of the interdisciplinary nature of the project, the publication features contributions
from a range of experts in various fields. The core of the text was written by a team
of authors from the Prague branch of the National Heritage Institute. Other important contributors
include specialists from several other institutions (the Czech Technical University in
Prague, the Brno University of Technology, the Institute for Theoretical and Applied Mechanics
at the Czech Academy of Sciences) and independent architectural historians. The aim of
the publication is to present the hotel from a full range of perspectives – not only exploring
new or forgotten facts, but also situating the design and construction of this remarkable
building within its broader historical context. The book is divided into several thematically
integrated parts, each of which is subdivided into individual chapters.
The first part of the book focuses in relatively general terms on the use of architecture
in the tourist industry. It consists of three chapters. In the first, the renowned architectural
historian Vladimír Šlapeta compares the development of hotel architecture in Czechoslovakia
and abroad, exploring the typology of hotel architecture, sources of inspiration and the
application of tried-and-tested principles to local projects. The next chapter, by Radomíra
Sedláková and Lenka Popelová from the Czech Technical University, presents a more detailed
overview of hotel architecture in Czechoslovakia, focusing more closely on the issue of
architectural competitions for hotels and listing specific locations that have attracted attention
from the architectural community. This first part of the book concludes with a chapter
tracing the life and work of Karel Filsak and the members of his team; this chapter is again
written by Radomíra Sedláková, a leading expert on Filsak’s work and an expert for the National
Gallery.
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