After 1989, as a result of the rapid development of industry and trade but also due to a desire to escape from blocks of flats to affordable private housing, Czech and Moravian towns started to spread uncontrollably into the surrounding countryside where satellite towns developed. This type of housing, known as “residential hodgepodge”, usually ignores urban planning guidelines (if there are any) and is indifferent to neighbouring buildings. This is true not only of large towns but also of the suburbs of smaller towns where it is even less desirable, as the area of newly built zones is often comparable to the original area of the town itself.
Litomyšl wanted to avoid this unfortunate “trend”, and therefore, in 2004, the chief architect of Litomyšl, Zdeňka Vydrová, drew up an urban plan for the “Benátská” industrial zone. This plan intended to bring order into built-up areas, set rules concerning distances between buildings, their heights and volume.
Companies intending to settle here understood that special attention had to be paid to the design of their buildings – that the quality of their buildings should reflect the quality of their products. One such company is the H. R. G. printing house which, in 2013, had a fourth building built onto an earlier building. This building is, in view of its utilitarian character, architecturally attractive. The aim of the designers, Tomáš Beránek and Rostislav Jakubec of the design studio ATX architekti, was to design a building of adequate size that would not appear dull. In this they were successful thanks to the application of vast glazed areas and large red loading bays which break up the monotony and mass of the main block. This, together with the dark grey facade, additionally helps to lighten the excessive industrial tone of the building which, as a result, has the appearance of a Minimalist structure.
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