Karel Roštík

   

  • architect

    Karel Roštík

  • Date of birth

    2. 9. 1884 Vlašim

  • Date of death

    25. 10. 1969 Prague
Karel Roštík, a native of Vlašim, studied architecture and civil engineering at the Technical University in Prague. He attended university from 1902, at a time when the influence of Professor Josef Schulz was still strong, although this important figure in historicism retired during Roštík's studies. Roštík did not graduate until 1912, but while at university he was already involved in the preparation of the design of the At the Stone Table tenement house (U Kamenného stolu) in Prague's New Town. He created it together with his fellow student Theodor Petřík, who was two years older, and with whom he also collaborated on several other buildings. Another of his later collaborators was Bohumír Kozák, with whom he implemented, for example, apartment blocks in Dělnická Street in Prague.

However, from 1916, Karel Roštík worked independently and his architecture gradually changed. From the geometric Art Nouveau style, which is featured on the At the Stone Table house (U Kamenného stolu), he moved on to plastic Neo-Classicism – the Post and Telegraph Office (Poštovní a telegrafní úřad) in Plzeň, and to more traditional Purism at the end of the 1920s (the Tuberculosis Pavilion of Na Bulovce Hospital). However, his work remained ambivalent – in parallel with purist and later functionalist forms, the architect used more traditional Classicism-style motifs. He often combined both approaches within a single building, which is most evident in Roštík's unsuccessful design submitted in the competition for the Palace of the League of Nations in Geneva in 1927, published in Architekt SIA magazine, to which Roštík was a contributor. He was part of the Group of Architects (Skupina architektů) associated around this periodical. Under its influence, he adopted strict functionalism after the mid-1930s, as evidenced by the Police Headquarters in Bartolomějská Street in Prague's Old Town.

Roštík's portfolio of works is mainly populated with hospital buildings, one of which, a Surgical Pavilion, he designed for Jihlava. The architect also continued to work on this type of building after the Second World War, when he and his colleagues participated in several tenders for hospital buildings in Prague. However, none of his post-war designs were used. Karel Roštík died in 1969 aged 85.

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