Prague’s Villa Bílek, “stronghold of a higher realm”, opens after renovation
Prague’s Villa Bílek, an intriguing piece of modern architecture, has opened to the public after two years of renovation. Designed by the Czech Art Nouveau artist František Bílek as his studio and family home, it stands out as one of the more unusual architectural landmarks of the capital, reflecting Bílek’s vision of a “stronghold of a higher realm”.
After two years of renovation work, the villa reopened for public at the end of September. It is run by Prague City Gallery, and now houses an exhibition of Bílek’s works, from sculptures to drawings and book illustrations. City Gallery’s Eva Riebová took me around.
“This is the studio where he worked. The other gallery room is a place where he wanted to store his works, which was an important thing for him. If you look at it, this might remind you of church architecture. That’s on purpose because František Bílek wanted to build his studio and the whole villa not only as a natural environment where he could work and live but also as a spiritual temple. His own daughter, Berta, got married right here, in this place.”
František Bílek was a leading figure of the Czech symbolist and Art Nouveau movements. It took him only a year to design the house, which Eva Riebová says puts visitors in mind of a wheat field.
“It really reminds you of grain stalks. That can have several meanings in symbolism – it may represent fertility; it may also represent the Earth as one of the elements, and also the Eucharistic symbol of Jesus Christ. That really presents František Bílek’s point of view.”
František Bílek designed the house and everything in it: the fittings, the furniture and every little detail. Eva Riebová says even the shape of the house has a higher significance.
“Every single part in this building has a special meaning. You can see these little symbols on the furniture, the grain stalks. The symbolism of the field is everywhere in the villa. The building itself is shaped in a segment of ellipse. In Bílek’s own words, it should remind you of a swipe of the scythe reaping grape. So again, this is an iconography of the field.”
František Bílek, a native of southern Bohemia, came to the capital to study at Prague’s Academy of Fine Arts. But he was colour-blind, so he soon switched to sculpture at another Prague school. He then went on to study in Paris. There he had another mystic vision which had a profound impact on his work. Eva Reibová again.
“All his life and his work were significantly influenced by his deep religious feelings. It wasn’t always easy for him to speak about his beliefs because the way he understood religion was different from those of others. People called him a mystic because his way of understanding religion was very special, influenced by several visions he had as a child and when he was studying in Paris in the 1890. In his writings, Bílek described several revelations in which he said he actually saw Jesus Christ.”
Bílek’s original religious ideas eventually drove him away from the Catholic Church. He also had to work hard to earn the recognition of Prague’s art community, which at first did not consider him to be a good artist. Zděnek Lukeš is a leading Czech architecture historian.
“At the beginning of his career, Bílek was not accepted by the art community. But by 1910, he had become a famous sculptor and earned the respect of experts. The house was unique due to its brick masonry and its flat roof – it was the first modern house in Prague with a flat roof. He was also inspired by Egyptian columns, and all this made the house very different from normal architecture.
The Villa Bílek is located at number 1 Mickewiczova St., which is just by Hradčany, or the Prague Castle complex. Zdeněk Lukeš explains that Prague City Hall had a different idea of what to do with the area, which is also home to other remarkable buildings.
“Originally, there were several late Baroque bastions, very unique, and also an old Baroque gate to the area of Prague castle. At the beginning of the last century, city planners wanted to pull all of this down and replace it with a regular street network. But two young architects, Vlastislav Hofman and Vladimír Zákrejs came up with another plan, preserving the four bastions and building new houses in the English cottage style – small houses with small gardens.”
The 1910s and 1920s was a very rich time for Prague and its architecture. Thanks to connections with Vienna and other cities in central Europe, many famous architects worked in the Czech capital at the time.
Zdeněk Lukeš says Prague City Gallery has done a great job in restoring the villa to its original state. František Bílek designed another house right next to his villa. That house belonged to a friend of his, a doctor, and it symbolizes autumn. It is now a private home, so we go back to the villa, where Eva Riebová continues the tour.
“Now we are standing in the dining hall, and we are looking at very light-oak furniture designed by František Bílek himself. We can see the little details over here, the symbols we were talking about earlier like the grain stalks. The vases that you see on the floors and the table were also designed by Bílek.”
An interesting thing about the living area and the whole villa in fact is that there are no right angles. All the rooms have rectangular shapes. That might be something an architect would not do. Bílek said there were no right angles in the nature, and we wanted to build a temple that would resemble the nature itself as much as possible.
Villa Bílek stands in what used to a very quiet area just off Prague Castle, on the edge of the Hradčany neighbourhood. Back in Bílek’s times, the area offered Bílek the quietness and peace he needed for his thoughtful work. But what would he think of the place now, with all the bustling with cars and trams?
“I cannot imagine František Bílek living in such a noisy area. There was of course much less traffic back in the day than there is now. I’m not sure if there were trams at that time but the area was definitely much quieter.”
Photo: Tomáš Souček
