Interpretation of the architectural form of the former Communist Party Headquarters: A Case study on White House in Brno

presentation, poster

English

The article offers a description and analysis of the so-called White House in Brno in terms of its architectural form and addresses methodological issues of its interpretation. The building of the Municipal Committee of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia (now the Czech Republic) and the House of Political Education was built between 1974 and 1976 following the design by architect Spurný in cooperation with engineer František Jakubec. The building represents one of the last architectural monuments from the post-war period in Brno, furthermore, it is in place of a former fortification of the city resulting in a direct proximity to the historical centre. Although the building serves nowadays partly as an elementary school, a polyclinic and a café, the ideologically burdened past is still present. Miroslav Spurný was never a member of the Communist Party, however, he was, as a head of Studio II at Brno's Stavoprojekt, entrusted with this representative commission. Unfortunately, the architect's personal notes and sketchbooks were irreparably destroyed and only a few materials on this topic are available. (SVOBODOVÁ, 2022) There are no academic publications or studies to support the qualities of Spurný's architecture, the valuable source is the oral history. Even though the experts emphasise the architectural form of the White House referring to interwar modernism and modernist urban planning, the proposal of declaring it a national cultural monument was declined two times and the imminence of the demolition is being discussed. (VRABELOVÁ, 2023) The presented research aims to draw parallels between the White House and its frequently cited source of inspiration – Le Corbusier's Swiss college (1929–1933) in the University City in Paris. (ŠVÁCHA, 2020) The objective is to point out the comprehensiveness of Spurný's design and employ compositional analysis, to reconstruct the symbols and ideas encoded in his architecture and juxtapose them alongside the past regime narrative to suggest new ways of perceiving and reading this building formerly serving a totalitarian ideology. To support these hypotheses and further the research the analysis and contextualization of other projects of Spurný would be valuable. Acknowledgements: The research was supported by Research Project No. FA-J-23-8101.

Modernism, Miroslav Spurný, Socialism, Interpretation of Architecture Form, Brno

TRUNCOVÁ, E.

21. 9. 2023

https://umg.edu.pl/en/news/2023/modernism-europe-modernism-gdynia-international-scientific-conference-held-gmu

MODERNISM IN EUROPE – MODERNISM IN GDYNIA 2023 - Poster - Eva Truncova.pdf