Věra Machoninová

Věra Machoninová, née Větrovská, is, along with Alena Šrámková and Růžena Žertová, one of the generation of Czechoslovak female architects born around 1930 whose creativity has made a significant mark on domestic architectural production. The buildings she helped to create are among the highlights of Czechoslovak post-war architecture to this day. Among them are the Hotel Thermal complex in Karlovy Vary, entering the panorama of the spa town with confidence; the Kotva department store, assembled like a honeycomb of individual hexagonal modules, effectively filling the complex shape of the plot on the border of the Old and New Towns; and the House of Residential Culture (Dům bytové kultury) with its technicist corten shell. They reflect not only the influences of Brutalist architecture, but also the architect's sense of working with the context of the place and with new materials in all their truthfulness and tantalisingly raw colours. The quality of Věra Machoninová's work is not only limited to the exterior – it also strongly permeates the interior. In their original form, the interiors were usually designed right down to the last detail, equipped with designer furniture and artwork in cooperation with leading Czechoslovak artists.

Věra Machoninová was born in Strakonice, where she also attended the primary school. After completing her studies at the Real Grammar School in Jičín in 1945, she decided to move to Prague to study at the Faculty of Civil Engineering and Architecture at the Czech Technical University. She finished her studies in 1952, but had already managed to get a job at the Institute of Statics and Mechanics. This was followed by a job at the State Design Institute (Státní projektový ústav) in Prague, where, with the encouragement of her husband, Vladimír Machonin, she decided to abandon the idea of designing and making structural calculations simultaneously, and devoted herself fully to architecture. At the same time, she and Machonin formed a strong design duo that regularly took the top places in architectural competitions during the 1950s and 1960s (for example, 1st prize in the architectural competition for the House of Culture in Jihlava in 1959, and 1st prize in the competition for the International Hotel and Festival Cinema in Karlovy Vary in 1961). In 1967, after fifteen years at Stavoprojekt, which the architect had spent in the studios of Josef Gočár, Jaroslav Kándl, Karel Filsak, and Pavel Bareš, the Machonins decided to set up their own studio under the auspices of the Association of Design Studios (Sdružení projektových ateliérů). However, its operation as well as the possibilities of architectural work for the couple were affected by the events of 21 August 1968. The Association of Design Studios (Sdružení projektových ateliérů) was dissolved in 1970 and all its studios, including Věra and Vladimír Machonin's studio, had to be merged under the Prague City Development Design Institute (Projektový ústav výstavby hlavního města Prahy), where Věra Machoninová remained until 1990. Because of their opposition to the invasion of Czechoslovakia by the Warsaw Pact troops, the Machonins were not accepted into the newly established Union of Architects (Svaz architektů) and were thus prevented from participating in tenders and publishing. In most cases, buildings whose construction began after 1968 are the completion of projects approved before the advent of normalisation.

The return to the private studio was only possible after the revolution, so the Alfa s.r.o. architectural office, which Machoninová founded in 1991, had to do without the creative influence of Vladimír Machonin. The post-revolutionary years have brought the architect a wave of new recognition from experts in the field (for example, the Czech Chamber of Architects' Honour, 2014), awards in architectural competitions, and the opportunity to execute the designed buildings. On the other hand, many of her buildings from 1948–1989 are currently facing the threat of insufficient preservation of post-war architecture in our territory. While Prague's Kotva department store was declared a cultural monument in 2019 after years of effort, the fate of Hotel Thermal, whose original interiors have already been irreversibly damaged by unauthorised interventions, remains unclear. Since 2015, the Respekt Madam initiative, backed by the Machonins' grandchildren Marie and Jan Kordovští, has been dedicated to the preservation and popularisation of the architectural legacy of the Machonins.

AB