Residences

A new era of housing in Pribram

Příbram IV, a neighbourhood without an official name. "Stalingrad" was the first swallow of the new era of housing in Pribram, the first post-war variation on the theme of apartment buildings, minimal, simple and efficient. It humorously continued the first-republican concept of building a new district, where we can already encounter its pre-war predecessors, still derived from traditional tenement houses.

The new houses showed the direction in which architecture and housing would take, in the form of several-storey buildings in smaller groups forming blocks, of which the city is then assembled.

The houses are covered with a typical gable or hipped roof, the interior represents a completely new standard of living in its time, with bathrooms and toilets in the flats and central heating as a matter of course. All this was further developed by its successor, the Březohorské settlement, which already had purely town-building ambitions.

Building a city

From today's perspective, the "first stage" of the construction of a new housing estate, then still an extension of the independent town of Březové Hory. The housing estate is already designed as a full-fledged town, the central square in the slope ended with the cultural house and the building of the local government into two parts, the orchards follow from the south, sports and recreational facilities and complete civic amenities are a matter of course.

However, just a few years after the start of construction, conditions are changing, the independent Březové Hory is disappearing, the development of new mining activity requires an even greater increase in the town's capacity, the original plan is being revised, but the first houses are already being completed and inhabited.

Today's 28th October Street is one of the few fragments of the still modest housing estate, detached houses are the basis of the blocks, the scale is smaller, sometimes softened by decor, but the socialist realism is fading, there is no need for opulence, but for a pleasant place to live.

Socialist realism on the wane

Surroundings of 17 November Square. A generous solution to the need to expand an already built housing estate, in some ways both modern and very archaic. The new designer approaches the task in an urban, one would like to say unexpectedly "traditional" way, using the built parts of the older design and adding a new block development with a spacious square, the centre of the city, enlivened with everything that belongs to the centre.

The House of Culture has an independent role, it does not belong only to the new housing estate, it is a dominant feature of the whole city, which corresponds to its outstanding urban position and the superior quality of its architectural design. However, the modern era is slowly coming and socialist realism must give way, this transformation is also reflected in the construction, where traditionalist architecture plays a role on the one hand, on the other hand, modernity is already in full force, the new city is thus unexpectedly gaining its diversity.

Cross Houses from Albena, Bulgaria

Already at the turn of the 1950s and 1960s, it was clear that even the expanded capacity of the estate would not be enough to meet the demands of the developing city; it had to be enlarged even further. Densification with tower blocks, an experimental model of which was built right on the main square, proved to be the first. But this is not enough, the city must go further into the countryside, to expand again. And so, from the 1970s onwards, the so-called 37th and 38th stages, the modernist housing estates, the maximum, fully equipped.

The symbol are the cross houses, unique buildings not unlike the hotels in Albena, Bulgaria, a favourite resort of many Příbram people. But the concept of terrace houses is changing, quantity is again winning over quality, a city is being built, out of concrete and glass, for the people, free from the people.

■ Michal Profant