Besides the prominent architect Věra Machoninová, Marie Holoubková is another of the few female representatives of their profession who worked for Jihlava. She was born into a family of a builder and architect Ing. Holoubek who, as part of the resistance movement during the Second World War, built tunnels for resistance fighters in Slovakia. He then found a job in the Dopravní stavby Olomouc company, where he designed and built the railway viaduct near Tišnov on the line between Havlíčkův Brod and Brno. Marie Holoubková’s mother, JUDr. Holoubková, worked in the Pozemní stavby Jihlava company. Her grandmother was Jewish, which was why Ing. Holoubek’s sister lost her life during the Protectorate in a gas chamber, along with her husband and children.
Marie Holoubková was born in Prague in 1946, but spent her childhood in the village of Mírovka near Havlíčkův Brod. She studied architecture in her native city of Prague. In order to be able to practise her profession, she needed work experience. On the advice of the architects Gryc and Řídký, she found a vacancy in Stavoprojekt Jihlava, where she returned after graduation. The architect Zdeněk Gryc met Marie’s mother at the time when the Sídliště II housing estate was being built in Jihlava as her mother was representing the Pozemní stavby company there. Zdeněk Gryc remembered the architect Marie Holoubková as a very kind and diligent person, and as a talented draughtswoman and artist.
Marie commuted with her mother to the studio in Stavoprojekt from Mírovka. She worked in the architectural teams of Zdeněk Baueršíma, and later Zdeněk Gryc. Gryc tasked her with designing a camp site near the village of Pávov, at the Pávovský rybník pond. The camp site began operations in three stages – the accommodation facilities were officially approved in January 1981, the restaurant in July 1983 and the subsequent extension in December 1987. The projects created in collaboration with Zdeněk Gryc also include the house of culture in Babice, a place that gained notoriety for illegal trials resulting in eleven death sentences from 1951–1952. The house of culture in Babice was built from 1974–1976. Marie Holoubková’s portfolio also includes a nursery located at Resslova 44 in Jihlava, on the territory of the Bedřichov housing estate. It was opened in September 1980.
Marie Holoubková’s life ended tragically. In 1982, she attempted suicide. She spent the next four years confined to a bed in hospital in Havlíčkův Brod, where she died on 22nd of December 1986.
FV