Následovníci Adolfa Loose

A SPACE WITH A PLAN, OR A SPACE WITH A FORM: WAS THE ‘RAUMPLAN’ AFTER LOOS?
Ladislav Zikmund-Lender
Although Jindřich Kulka left a number of buildings in the Czech lands during the 1930’s, Eastern Bohemia was of special
importance to him. Kulka’s wife, who was related to business families from Hronov, mediated several orders for the architect:
during the escape of the Kulkas from Austria in 1938, the design of Rudolf and Ilza Holzner’s villa in Hronov and the apartment
building for a relative Karl Löwenbach in Hradec Králové. After Kantor’s villa in Jablonec, Semler’s residence in Pilsen or
Teichner’s mountain villa at Špičák, these are the top and final Kulka’s works in Europe. Although Jindřich Kulka invented the
analytical term raumplan, which he sought to capture the spatial qualities and design of Adolf Loos’ architecture, we may ask
how dogmatic it was for Kulka’s own architectural achievements and to what extent Kulka adapted Loos’ training in the 1930’s
to the advancing housing rationalization. In this paper, I try to critically evaluate the use of Raumplan for Kulka’s residential
buildings in comparison with the ‘after-Loosian’ work of other pupils and successors of Adolf Loos, and in comparison with other
architects of Viennese training active in Hradec Králové and I propose a much more appropriate term of “raumform” for Kulka’s
East Bohemian designs, as used by the critic Max Eisler.
KARL HOFMANN
3. 10. 1890 or 2. 9. 1890, Vienna – 1962, Melbourne
He graduated from the Technical University of Vienna in 1914, from 1915 he was a member of the Architects Association of
Austria, later a member of the Association of Engineers and Architects of Austria. Together with his classmate Felix Augenfeld
he founded an architectural office in 1922, which worked very successfully until 1938, when both architects had to leave Austria
due to their Jewish origin. Karl Hofmann first fled to Brno in September 1938, where his wife Gertrude, also an architect, had
her base. In January 1939, the couple and their extended family arrived in Australia. They settled in Melbourne, where mainly
Gertrude focused on architectural work. In his application for citizenship in 1944, Hofmann did not mention being architect as
a profession, but rather an engineering designer.
Hofmann & Augenfeld specialized in interior design, especially in Vienna. The clients were initially personalities with whom both
architects had contact, such as the family of Sigmund Freud or the actress and screenwriter Gina Kaus. They used well-thoughtout
aesthetic concepts that are timeless and still attractive today. In their designs, they combined modern living convenience
with maximum comfort and elegance. They often used differently structured woods combined with tubular steel, sometimes
even strong colours. They always placed their designs in the context of the environment in which they were created, referring
to the surrounding landscape and its specifics and materials. Despite the difficult economic situation in the interwar period,
Augenfeld and Hofmann were also able to realize some important buildings, such as a residential complex in the 21st district
on Pragerstraße street in Vienna or office buildings for textile factories in Nová Paka and Krnov in then Czechoslovakia.
FRIEDRICH (BEDŘICH) EHRMANN
29. 3. 1895, Ostrovec – 28. 10. 1981, Detroit
CATALOGUE – THE FOLLOWERS OF ADOLF LOOS
FELIX AUGENFELD
10. 1. 1893 Vienna – 21. 7. 1984 New York
Felix Augenfeld studied at the Technical College in Vienna under Karl König and Max von Ferstel. When Adolf Loos opened his
private school, he registered as one of the first students. “It was a small group of students back then. I clearly remember the
following: Richard Neutra, Rudolph Schindler, Paul Engelmann and Ernst Freud, the youngest son of Sigmund Freud. I became
very friendly with Neutra and Freud. It was not possible to use the word “school” or the word “work” for this small working
group. It was a kind of seminar, a free group united by a common spirit. We did not meet in the auditorium or in the studio, but
on makeshift walks or at round tables in the city, in the Kärtnerbar (furnished by Loos), in cabarets and nightclubs, in marble
warehouses and in the apartments whose interiors Loos worked on. The lessons were basically discussions, mostly critical or
polemical, especially against Josef Hofmann and the ornamental work of the Wiener Werkstätte. Evil tongues claimed that
Loos’s hostility to Josef Hofmann came from a time when he sat with him at the same school desk in Brno. “In my memory,
Loos was an elegant, original bohemian at the time, with a somewhat eccentric demeanour. He never wanted to be considered
an “expert” and was proud to be the only architect who never had a pencil in his pocket. At the time, I didn’t know he had a real
working office. There were no registration formalities, exams or certificates at his school of course.” In 1922, Augenfeld, together
with his friend and classmate Karel Hoffman, opened a studio. It worked until 1938. In 1931 he worked as a set designer and
theatre architect in Vienna and London together with Oskar Strnad. At the instigation of Sigmund Freud’s daughter, he designed
a working chair for Freud. Felix Augenfeld emigrated to London in 1938 and then to the USA the following year, where he
established his own practice. He worked mainly as an interior and furniture designer.
Friedrich Ehrmann was one of Prague’s German-speaking architects. He was the son of the engineer Albert Ehrmann, who
worked in Vienna. His studies of architecture at the Vienna University of Technology, graduating in 1913–1921, were interrupted
by the war. Experience with Loos’s private construction school is assumed to have been during this time. Close relations with
Adolf Loos are evidenced by Ehrmann’s participation in the celebration of Loos’s 60th birthday held at Prague Social Club. In
addition to the signature of Ehrmann’s cousin Leopold, his signature is also recognized on the list of participants. He is also
identified in several joint photographs taken during this important event by Loos´ supporters. At the turn of the 1920s and
1930s, F. Ehrmann was listed as a professor at the German Technical College in Prague. His fate after the adoption of the
Reich Discrimination Laws (1933) and their subsequent introduction in Czechoslovak German-language schools is not known.
It is certain that in 1936 he could be found in the Prague directory under the name “Bedřich” (he also used the form Fritz in
his business dealings) in house no. 41 in Lützow (today’s Opletalova) Street. Subsequently, because of his Jewish origin, he
emigrated and settled in the United States, where he also died. He is buried in Detroit.
LEOPOLD MOSTNÝ EHRMANN
6. 3. 1886, Strakonice – 11. 4. 1951, Chicago
Leopold Ehrmann, like his cousin Friedrich Ehrmann, was one of the German-speaking architects working in Prague. Born into
a Jewish family, his father Josef Ehrmann (from Ostrovec near Písek) ran a haberdashery shop in Strakonice (Velké náměstí
145). He graduated from the state secondary school in Pilsen, followed by a study of civil engineering at the Vienna Technical
University (since 1904/1905). The war years are not clear, but, as with many others of his generation, military service can be
assumed. On 7 January 1918 in Vienna, he married Kamila née Voglová, who came from Písek. After the war, Ehrmann enrolled
in Loos’ private school (1920/1921). The alleged studies at the German Technical University in Prague are not documented in
any way. His first works in Prague have been known since 1924. He worked closely with Prague Jewish communities, for which
he adapted buildings and synagogues to their new requirements. He designed comprehensive facilities for the New Jewish
148 149