The architecture of an embassy tells us much about how a country sees itself – and, most tellingly perhaps, how it would prefer to be seen. Prior to the Velvet Revolution, for example, Czechoslovakia’s diplomatic outposts were naturally associated with communism by foreign powers and observers. And yet, paradoxically, their architecture eschewed visual political propaganda and instead adhered to the spirit of international Modernism and Brutalism. From the beginning of the 1960s, many high-quality projects rose from the ground, many of which can be read as so-called Gesamtkunstwerks, or complete works of art right down to the last detail.
Every Czechoslovak embassy built at this time was a carrier of new and often experimental trends, from architecture and interior design to visual arts. All these disciplines met side by side in the realisations, creating unexpected environments whose artistic inventiveness was often very impressive. ‘While ordinary housing construction in Czechoslovakia gradually declined during the 1960s and 1970s, the socialist state spared no expense in its external representation,’ explains Czech architecture historian Rostislav Švácha. ‘This was true not only of the much-respected Czechoslovak industrial exhibitions but also of buildings such as the headquarters of foreign trade enterprises at home and embassies abroad – for example, the embassies of architect Karel Filsak in Beijing, Brasília, New Delhi and Cairo. Because they were no longer allowed to be published at the time they were completed, they represent a strange peak of the work of the time, virtually unknown to the public then.’
In the early 1980s, Karel Filsak, in collaboration with Vladimír Toms, completed the last of his Czechoslovak embassy projects in Cairo. This large complex consists of a vertical residential section and horizontal office spaces. The 13-storey residential tower is made up of massive concrete masonry rhythmed by horizontal bands of recessed terraces that shield the interiors from the harsh Egyptian sun. Indeed, the work with light and its regulation influenced the architecture of the entire complex, which the architects designed under the immediate influence of local climatic conditions. Even the horizontally extended administrative part was conceived as a massive shelter from the sun. The low concrete volumes overhang and cast shadows on the space around the building – the beige of the concrete blending in with the colour of the surrounding desert.
The interiors of the embassy were designed by architects Vladimír Štulc and Jan Vrana, who created a unique set of built-in and free-standing furniture. The most exciting pieces are located mainly in the diplomatic part. Chairs and armchairs of massive forms are made of bent laminate bundles. The low sculptural armchairs are especially original in their design.
On the walls of these spaces there are scratched reliefs by Ladislav Čepelák and figurative wall pannels by painter Karel Souček. On the walls behind the seating area, there is a relief carved from solid wood by sculptor Josef Klimeš, while the chandeliers in the reception hall are the work of Czech glass artists and designers Marian Karel and Karel Vaňura. The navigation system comes from the workshop of renowned graphic designer and typographer Jiří Rathouský.
The authentic interior of the embassy has survived to today and still serves its original purpose. It is one of the last Czech embassy interiors of the postwar era that can still tell the stories of complexity of design thinking imprinted into concrete of the buildings, as well as to unique artworks and pieces of design.
With thanks to the Czech Centres network.
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