Higher Trade School (today’s Tertiary Professional School and Secondary Technical School)

Discussions concerning a new building for the school were already held at the start of the 1930s, when Čeněk Musil drafted his first functionalist sketches for the building, free of charge. In fact, these were never realised. A decision was finally taken to develop the new plot on today’s Pod Koželuhy Street in February 1936. From then through to 1939, when ground was broken, several plans were readily forthcoming for a building that would close off the space between the Commercial College and the Bohemian Paradise Theatre. Although the interior arrangement of the planned building remained more or less unchanged, the exterior – despite preserving some important features – underwent a marked transformation. According to one of the most modernistic designs, a three-storey brick building supported by a reinforced concrete structure and situated along the axis of the new bridge over the Cidlina River, would “[…] impress purely by its structural simplicity, the rhythm of the windows and its simple monumentality.” This flat-roofed building was rejected, however. Instead, a much more classical design was selected. It had a similar floor-plan, with a socle created from sandstone blocks, a cornice running between floors and an entrance located in a striking avant-corps, with a separate roof. The window ribbon on the façade and the highly rational internal lay-out are a nod to functionalism. Besides the foyer, onto which the caretaker’s apartment opened, the ground-floor comprised a central cloakroom, one classroom, a hairdressers’ workshop, a reading room, and a carpentry, mechanical engineering and blacksmith’s workshop. The first floor was given over to facilities for teaching staff and the director, three classrooms and a paint and varnish workshop. The third floor had two classrooms, a painting and decorating workshop, a fine art workshop, two staff rooms, a reserve workshop and the entrance to the attic.

These days the building continues to serve its original purpose. In 2018–2020 the building was clad in insulation and given a new façade.

(GA)