Eleven floors and fifty-two meters. This little was enough in the mid-1930s to talk about the new building of the General Pension Institute in Žižkov as a skyscraper. The sky would have to fall really low ... But hand on heart, even those fifty meters of height meant significant construction progress during the First Republic.
In their dreams, builders have alwayslonged to reach heavenly heights. In this respect, the ideal investor for themwas the church, which has had churches with tall towers built since theRomanesque times. Petr Parléř managed to overcome the 50-meter height in the14th century during the construction of the south tower of the St. VitusCathedral. However, it would be difficult to find such comfort in it as on thetop floor of the General Pension Institute - Všeobecný penzijní ústav (VPÚ).
VPÚ decided to build a new headquartersduring the 1920s. Until then, the institution was located in a palace onRašínovo nábřeží, which had been built just ten years earlier. However, thesharp increase in the number of insured persons required a proper counterweighton the part of officials. Therefore, the Podskalská address began to burst atthe seams very soon and it was necessary to move to larger headquarters. Butthat meant building something bigger first.
A secret Prague compass
The Žižkov plot on the site of the former Rajská zahrada - Garden of Paradise proved to be a suitable place for the new headquarters. Until the 1920s, the First Žižkov Municipal Gas Plant stood here, supplying municipal gas lamp posts with gas. However, shortly after the completion of the modern gas station in Michle, its Žižkov predecessor fell to the ground. The planned plot subsequently sought a new use, which came handy for the VPÚ.
The pension institute purchased the mentioned plot and subsequently announced a non-public architectural competition, to which it invited a limited number of creators. However, the young architectural tandem Josef Havlíček and Karel Honzík soon found out about the competition and asked if they could also take part. It had been permitted,which turned out to be a happy decision. The H + H duo brought progressive thinking and modern tendencies to the competition.
While in the conditions of the tender it was stated that the headquarters should have the form of a house block, Havlíček and Honzík did not care. In spite of the conditions, they chose the cross plan and raised the building several floors above the level of the surrounding buildings. And surprisingly, they won the first prize in the competition. The upset competitors immediately made a fuss that such conduct was not fair because there was a breach of competition rules. However, the client did not bother with it, and according to the motto: "I pay, I decide," pushed through. And did well.
Although both architects were not even thirty years old at the time of the competition, they showed by far the biggest ingenuity. They were inspired by the contemporary work of the Frenchman Le Corbusier, who promoted maximum efficiency and rationality of buildings. At the same time, he called for the best possible use of natural light, to which he subordinated both the floor plan and the arrangement of the windows. Havlíček and Honzík were his attentive students. They designed the house with a cross layout precisely in order to bring daylight to all 700 designed offices. Also interesting is the fact that the individual wings are oriented in the north-south and east-west axis. Thanks to this, the building functions as a discreet compass in the center of Prague.
Remove two floors
Modern elements pervaded the entire building. Sash windows enhanced the lighting of office spaces, the central staircase completed with several elevators facilitated moving around and orientation in the building. But above all, it was the first fully air-conditioned building in what was then Czechoslovakia. The use of air conditioning was to minimize the opening of windows, because the nearby station was a large source of smoke and ash. For the same reason, the building was provided with ceramic tiles, which made it easier to maintain.
Even before the start of construction,there were several partial reworkings of the project. The originally proposed steel load-bearing structure was finally replaced by a reinforced concrete one for safety reasons. And Havlíček and Honzík had to reduce the building by two floors, which however, did not detract from its monumentality. Construction began in April 1932 and after two years, insurance officials could begin to move in.
At the time of its establishment, it was the most modern administrative center in Prague. Only the Holešovice headquarters of the Electrical Enterprises of the Capital City of Prague, which was built at the same time, could compete with it. Both buildings still have a lot in common and with a bit of exaggeration could be described as siblings. This is despite the fact that the "tile factory" on Vltavská originated in the minds of another architectural duo - Adolf Benš and Josef Kříž.
But let's go back to Žižkov. At the grand opening of the new VPÚ headquarters, no one probably knew what would happen in the coming years. The white-collar routine was first disrupted by World War II. This was followed by the communist coup in 1948 and massive nationalization, which not even the General Pension Institute escaped from. The pension system was taken over by the state, so the Revolutionary Labor Union Movement (Revoluční odborové hnutí - ROH) moved into the building. The original three letters above the main entrance were therefore replaced by the new abbreviation ROH.
The labor unions are still based in the Žižkov skyscraper, although they removed the word "revolutionary" from their name after 1989. However, their almost seventy-year sublease iscoming to an end. In 2019, Dům Žižkov, a.s. became the new owner of the building, and it wants to bring life back to it - revitalize it and make it accessible to the public. Soon, the functionalist gem will shine again in all its beauty.
