Stanislav Tobek

The Prague architect Stanislav Tobek is one of Josef Gočár's lesser known pupils. He came from a family whose roots were in Osík near Litomyšl and who had a long tradition of working in architecture. Stanislav worked in this branch as did his father Antonín, a graduate of the Viennese Academy and teacher at construction engineering schools in Prague and Jaroměř, and his cousin František (incidentally, the designer of the cemetery in Osík).

Stanislav Tobek studied at the State Technical College of Higher Education in Brno. From 1929 to 1932, he attended Josef Gočár's courses at the Academy of Fine Arts in Prague. Here he became acquainted with the architects Lev Krča and Jaroslav Kincl with whom he set up an architecture design studio after undertaking a short practical placement at Jaroslav Fragner's studio. Their buildings featured subtle Functionalist forms, often inspired by German architecture. The Kincl-Krčka-Tobek design studio made its name mainly by developing standardized detached houses featuring prefabricated steel structures made by Vítkovice Steelworks. He patented the product which was intended to be used for speeding up the construction of detached houses, and even published details of the construction system in periodicals of the time (e.g. Pestrý týden). However, very few houses were actually built in this fashion, with the most known being the villas of Josef Železný in Jimramov, and Maxmilián Záveský in Dobřichovice. His designs for buildings for the Sokol Organisation were also of exceptional architectonic merit, especially the Sokol Organization building in Domažlice. In 1938, shortly before closing his design studio, he designed an impressive Functionalist grandstand, also featuring a steel frame, for the stadium of the Vítkovice Mining Company.

In 1938, Tobek set up an independent design studio in Prague, and lived in Nepomucký Street in one section of a prefabricated house constructed according to his own designs. He not only carried out designs for detached houses, apartment blocks and buildings for the Sokol Organization, but also for town planning projects and advertisements. During his independent career, in contrary to his strictly modern designs in the spirit of “White Functionalism”, he returned to more traditional forms (hipped roofs with mansards, strips of brick cladding, massive sandstone bossages) to which he also however, added modern elements – in particular, strip windows, large glazed areas, etc.

The 1950s signalled the not only the end for Tobek's own studio (1950) and subsequent work in industrial building construction but also a spell of several years in Pankrác Prison. Here, together with other significant figures in Czech architecture, e.g. Jaroslav Vaculík (with whom, incidentally, he founded the Ateliér 13 studio in 1956), Jiří F. Kaisler, Theodor Pisch, František Bäumelt and Bedřich Rozehnal, he was imprisoned on the basis of false charges. These charges included the alleged theft of public property, his previous Functionalist tendencies, and his “inappropriate” views supporting architectural cosmopolitanism, Modernist Formalism, etc. At the beginning of the 1960s, the General Committee of the Czechoslovak Communist Party (ÚV KSČ) employed the imprisoned architects, along with other construction engineers and building technicians, on a project for the construction of a secret recreation centre in Vystrkov in the vicinity of Orlík Dam. The aim of the centre was “to offer a place of relaxation for politicians and other ÚV KSČ party members and their guests from abroad”. Although the project designers of the individual buildings within the luxury resort (a hotel, houses for party officials and a villa for President Novotný) have never been precisely identified, Stanislav Tobek was definitely among them as he was in the prison at the time when the Pankrác project, known as the “Basaprojekt”, was being designed. According to eyewitness accounts, Tobek also participated in the design project of the ice hockey stadium in Prague-Bubeneč.
 

1932–1933
Villa for Jarmila Štěpničková (with Lev Krč)
Na Vyhlídce 390, Dobřichovice-Brunšov

1933
Sokol organization building (with Lev Krč)
Tyršova 403, Bystřice nad Pernštejnem

1933–1934
Summer residence for Maxmilián Záveský (with Lev Krč)
Na Vyhlídce No. 394, Dobřichovice-Brunšov

1934
Detached house (with Jaroslav Kincl and Lev Krč)
K Habrovce 675/8, Prague-Krč

1936
Sokol organization building
Benešova 281, Domažlice (with Lev Krč)

1936–1937
Vila Josefa Železného (with Jaroslav Kincl and Lev Krč)
Dolní 257, Jimramov

1937
Semi-detached house (with Jaroslav Kincl and Lev Krč)
Nepomucká 659/11–658/13, Prague-Košíře

1937–1939
Stadium of the Vítkovice Mining Company (with Jaroslav Kincl and Lev Krč)
Závodní, Ostrava-Vítkovice

1939–1940
Detached house
Charlese de Gaulla 914/25, Prague-Bubeneč

1939–1941
Detached house
E. Beneše 128/11, Říčany-Radošovice