Karel Bíbr

The engineer and architect Karel Bíbr was born in Kojetín into the family of the shoemaker Jan Bíbr. After leaving the local municipal school, he attended the grammar school of higher education in Kroměříž from 1901 to 1906. Subsequently, he enrolled at the C. a k. Czech Technical University in Prague where he studied civil engineering. His favourable study results together with his relatively poor social background earned him a scholarship from a cultural association called Pohorská jednota Radhošť and was thus, able to complete his studies in Prague in 1914.

It was not until after the war, on the 20th of December in 1919, that he passed the second state exam. On the same day, he was awarded a position as an assistant with Professor Rudolf Kříženecký. Bíbr worked at his studio to 1921, after which was employed as a construction planner at the Prague construction company of Viktor Beneš. In May 1923, he passed his certification exam and, in February 1925, the District Government in Prague granted him a certificate of authorization as a civil engineer.

In the mid-1920s, he started to cooperate with the architect and builder František Radvanovský from Čelákovice, and together they designed and carried out the construction of several family villas in the Za Dráhou quarter of Čelákovice. Towards the end of 1928, Bíbr and his family moved to Čelákovice. A year later, he built a detached house of his own design – house No. 760 in Ferlesova Street, today's Vančurova Street. He also founded his own company in Čelákovice and became a successful and much sought after architect and builder. The company gradually expanded and employed not only tradesmen, but also other specialists such as the engineer Václav Moravec, builder Josef Pařížek and building foreman František Arazim.

Karel Bíbr is the designer of a range of houses and official or industrial buildings in various towns throughout the Czech Republic. He specialized in standardized design projects for apartment blocks containing small flats. He took part in several architecture design competitions for buildings of this type in which he either came first or achieved good results.

In the mid-1930s, he gained a good reputation with the Čelákovice factory owner Josef Volman for whom he later designed and carried out a range of manufacturing and administrative buildings for his factories manufacturing metal-working machines in Čelákovice and Žebrák. From 1938 to 1939 he oversaw the building of Volman's Functionalist villa designed by Jiří Štursa and Karel Janů.

After the Second World War broke out, Bíbr had to stop his business activities and his professional colleagues and qualified tradesmen left the company. During the German occupation he worked mostly for Josef Volman's companies. After liberation, he went back to his profession, designing new apartment blocks in Čelákovice and factory buildings. In 1945, he became the chairman of the planning and regulation commission of the Local National Committee in Čelákovice and, even during retirement, took part in planning the concept for the development of the town alongside his design work.

He spent the last month of his life in a sanatorium in Nová Ves pod Pleší where he died before his 85th birthday after a prolonged period of poor health. After his death, part of his legacy, consisting predominantly of his design project documentation, was deposited in the museum in Čelákovice.
 

1926
Flats for military officers
Kutná Hora

1927
Rowing Club
Hodonín

1928
Housing and administrative buildings
Kroměříž

1934
District Court (today, the Faculty of Education, Charles University)
Brandýs nad Labem