Could any Czech friends help translate this video? My friend is writing an essay on Zdeňěk Řihák and would like it to be translated into English or Polish. He has access to other sources but he would like to use this documentary as well. Thank you in advance!
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Napajedla native, Zdeněk (not Zdeňěk, it’s a typo even in the video title) Řihák, an architect
*Professor engineer architect Ivan Ruller, born in 1926*:
“We’ve met in ’45, right after the war, when the faculty of architecture was opened. We signed up there, so we became classmates. So since then – since ’45 – basically until his death, we were pals and very good friends. Even though he worked elsewhere, so our professional contacts were interupted, it didn’t change anything about our personal friendship.
Professor Rozehnal had chosen a group of about 8 students – Řihák was one of them, I was one of them as well. We were working on his major projects, like selection procedure for the Bratislava university campus, then here in Brno, professor Rozehnal did a project for the hospital. So these were the projects we worked on from ’48 to ’50. Then, in ’50, he went to the compulsory military service. So when he returned from the service in ’52, we started looking for a job, and we started working for Komunotechna Brno, which was a small projecting institute.
He was extraordinaly artistically gifted, so he was able to realize not exactly conventional ideas and he was able to succesfully finish the ideas. When you look at for example those hotels, like Panorama, that’s a characteristic dominant feature. There, he applied a sort of a movement in the footprint, where every floor is shifted and it creates a very interesting dominant feature. On the other hand, for example Patria, is following its background. The ridge of the Tatra mountains creates a sort of a scenery and there is the hotel in front of it, respecting the relation between the building and the nature feature of the beautiful mountains. And in Labská bouda, there I find it quite funny that the entrance is at the top, and the living quarters are facing the valley where there is no traffic. So I don’t understand why it aroused some resentment at times, they even wanted to demolish it. Which I’d consider barbaric, because the building has some unquestionable architectural qualities.”
-I’ve ended at 3:46 mark, I’m too sleepy to carry on lol