Jakub Potůček

Dopis Jana Kotěry Františku Ulrichovi ze dne 25. ledna 1910

The bidding contest for plans for regulating the Elbe and Orlice river basins in 1909 was one of the grandest urban projects undertaken in the City of Hradec Králové. Ultimately only nine teams submitted projects to the contest, in which originally a strong interest was expressed also by some young Prague architects, all of them followers of the ideas of Otta Wagner. Although in the end the jury selected the three most inspired projects (first prize went to a joint proposal by Vladimír Zákrejs, Josef Šejna, and Václav Rejchl, Jr., second went to the project by Oldřich Liska and Otakar Klumpar, and third prize went to the designers Jan Bažant, Antonín Papež, and Julius Spíšek), none of them were ever executed. At the request of František Ulrich, the architect Jan Kotěra became involved and after a detailed study of the best-rated projects recommended to the mayor of Hradec Králové that the authors of the top two projects, the local architects Václav Rejchl, Jr., and Oldřich Liska, together draw up a new and definitive plan. Kotěra noticed that none of the three studies offered the city an ideal urban plan, as each of them created good solutions for only some of the main requirements. The definitive regulation plan for Hradec Králové was completed by the architects Oldřich Liska and Václav Rejchl, Jr., in 1911 and it was truly a synthesis of the main ideas contained in both of the original projects from 1909. This article relates the circumstances and development of this important urban planning contest and the close cooperation between the mayor of the city of Hradec Králové František Ulrich and the architect Jan Kotěra.

< back