Redrawing as key to the spatial thought of Hana Kučerová Zaveská

Abstract

The paper analyzes two works of Hana Kučerová Zaveská, Czech architect and designer who has made an important contribution to the Modern Movement, dealing with social housing and social services and placing its emphasis on improving the status of women. His brief but intense activity is developed in Czechoslovakia in the period between the wars and is influenced by the architecture and art movements that occurred in the country during the twenties and thirties. In the footsteps of Marcel Breuer and Mies van der Rohe, she creates furniture where functionality is combined with the elegance and in which we recognize the signature style of the designer, her innovative use of materials and production methods. One of the first women to represent Modern Architecture at the Exhibition of Contemporary Culture in Brno in 1928, Hana Kučerová Zaveská is called by her teacher, Pawel Janek, for the edification of residential district Baba in Prague, presented at the residential architecture as a field of experimentation with minimal houses. The district had to be an example of the modern lifestyle, which was also expressed in living in single-family homes characterized by modern architectural solutions. With Villa Balling, Hana Kučerová Zaveská is the only woman to design for Baba. Another significant project is carried out since 1933; this is the summer residence for the parents in the district Dobřichovice in Prague. Both villas have great flexibility through a renewable and modifiable space as needed. The design also affects the furniture that is designed for every room of the house, in a simple, effective and convenient way, to promote, as the same designer said, the liberation of women from unnecessary home work. In these achievements are clear influences of Le Corbusier as those of Adolf Loos. Hana Kučerová Zaveská has been able to re-read the history of architecture and socio-economic changes that were affecting the rest of Europe, managing to develop solutions that are still among the best examples of "architecture feminine". Redrawing projects Hana Kučerová Zaveská through new and unreleased representations and through graphical analysis, wants to provide an original key to the spatial thought of the architect.