Jan Šula

The architect and teacher Jan Šula, active in Plzeň and Prague, was among the relatively conservative designers of the late Historicism period and a loyal follower of Academism and the Neo-renaissance style in architecture.

From 1879 to 1885, he studied building engineering at the Czech Polytechnic and later worked with Prof. Jan Koula in the state department for building industry. In 1891, he took up position as a professor at Plzeň Technical College where, among other activities, he wrote textbooks (e.g. Tvarosloví, 1900). He left Plzeň in 1906 and moved to the Technical College in Prague, becoming its head in 1914.

The majority of his projects were for Plzeň or Prague and were mainly for townhouses and large public buildings. His most-known, and also most controversial, design was that of the building of the Malostranská Záložna in Prague, at the corner of Mostecká Street and Malostranské (Lesser Town) Square in 1895. It was problematic from the point of view of heritage care, described by Vilém Mrštík in his famous manifest Bestia triumphans as a disrupter “of the charming prospect along Mostecká Street, blocking the view of St Nicholas Church, and bringing shame on the appearance of the Lesser Town Square with its lack of arcades”.

Šula's building designs were indeed amongst the most conservative, deeply rooted in the tradition of 19th century Historicism which was extremely difficult for the more current Art-Nouveau to break into.

AŠ
 

1892
House facade
Dominikánská 282, Plzeň

1892
Facade of Conner building
Plachého, Plzeň

1893–1895
Malostranská záložna
Malostranské náměstí 38 / Mostecká 40, Praha - Malá Strana

1897
Sokol Organization building (with Viktorin Šulc)
Praha - Malá Strana

1898
Housekeeping school
Plzeň

1898
Dairy and Dairy school
Plzeň

1898
Townhouse
Opletalova 1964, Praha - Nové Město (with Alfons Wertmüller)

1910
Block of flats for employees of sugar refinery
Libáň

1911
Department store Leopold Hajíček
Žižkovo nám., České Budějovice