One of the biggest, most expensive and boldly designed buildings in Litomyšl in the interwar period was the Masaryk District Technical College, built on a commandeering site above Smetana House (02-402). The school was built by František X. Čtrnáctý and his Prague construction company between 1926 an 1929 to designs by Prague architect, Karel Tymich. Immediately after construction, it became the centre of and dominant building of the East-Bohemian Regional Exhibition which was being held in Litomyšl in the summer of 1929. Later, minor finishing work and the installation of fittings were carried out. Teaching started in the academic year 1930/31.
Karel Tymich, who specialized in designing public buildings and was a devotee of Functionalism and Neo-plasticism in architecture, designed a vast complex of buildings with a variety of shapes, and whose entrance gate featured sculptures in an allegory of industry by Jaromír Mára. Tymich designed a purist facade for the building, with a combination of clean, smooth plaster and contrasting brick facings. The school building itself is located in the left part of the complex, with the classrooms, offices, staffroom and headmaster's flat. The latter is made up of box-like modules stacked in cascade fashion. The architect placed the workshop buildings with pronounced factory-style skylights in the right part of the complex and accessible from the main building through an enclosed overpass.
The uncompromising shift towards Rational Constructivism was something hitherto unheard of in Litomyšl. The lay and professional public welcomed this – the third of its kind – school building in the Masaryk Quarter. However, most architecture periodicals of the time ignored it, in spite of the fact that Tymich was a member of the circle of designers connected with the progressive revue Stavba. At least Litomyšl historians Zdeněk Nejedlý and František Lašek judged it positively, praising its “graceful, constructive partitioning, void of any pointless ornamentation” and the application of geometric, right-angle and linear elements.
The interior of the school has retained many of its authentic features and fittings (the vestibule and furniture in the headmaster's flat, wooden panelling and lighting in the staffroom, and some of the lecture rooms and workshop equipment, have all been preserved). Today, rightly, it is a listed building as a part of the national heritage.
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