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Antonín Blažek, a somewhat forgotten figure who carried out much of his work on the periphery, remains difficult to situate within the ‘grand’ narrative of history. Yet his education alone places him firmly among the generation of modern architects. In Prague, he studied under Friedrich Ohmann at the Academy of Arts, Architecture and Design in Prague (UMPRUM) between 1894 and 1899. At the Academy, Blažek attended the special school for medieval architecture led by Viktor Luntz, though he was equally interested in developments in Otto Wagner’s school of architecture. Accordingly, he conceived his first realised building, a complex of rental houses on Solniční Street in the centre of Brno, including the Hotel Slavia (1903), in the spirit of Viennese Secession. Although Blažek took great pains to establish himself in Vienna after graduating from the Academy, the intense competition proved insurmountable, and in 1905, he departed for Královo Pole (then a town near Brno, now a district of the city). His pre-war work unequivocally reveals him as a modern architect, attuned to contemporary Viennese trends and also well versed in German architecture. This is exemplified by the Jubilee School in Komín (1908–1909), the Sokol gym building in Boskovice (1911–1912), and the Dominican convent in Přerov (1916–1918). The fact that he also designed two historicising churches – one in Bílovice nad Svitavou (1906–1908) and the other in Brno-Komín (1911–1913) – does not alter this overall assessment. At times, he drew upon motifs popular in the British Isles, as is clearly evident in the House of Artists in Hodonín (1911–1913). In this enigmatic building, one of Blažek’s career highlights, the architect applied local Moravian-Slovak folk elements for the first time – above all, the žudro, a vaulted porch traditionally used at the entrances of houses in the region's vernacular architecture – which he employed as entrance portals. Before the First World War, Blažek developed his own distinctive vocabulary of ornamental forms, culminating in the school in Královo Pole (1912–1914). Alongside Dušan Jurkovič and Emil Králík, he established himself as one of the most prominent Czech-speaking modern architects in Moravia at that time. He also consolidated his position within the Association of Moravian Fine Artists, which acted as a significant conduit for commissions. Throughout the 1920s, Antonín Blažek continued to employ his distinctive pre-war style, albeit in a somewhat lighter form. A case in point is the post office and court building in Hodonín (1925–1928). Yet, as before the war, he remained a pluralist. For instance, he employed motifs of the popular Rondocubism, “the style of the Republic”, though he modified them according to his own taste. In this manner, he designed a large number of state housing blocks, particularly in Brno, Hodonín, and Olomouc. After 1925, he embraced the then widely accepted modern classicism, using it primarily for public buildings, for example, the unsuccessful competition design for the Sokol gym building in Brno (1926), the Sickness Fund building (1926–1927) and the elementary school in Hodonín (1927–1931), which undoubtedly represents the overlooked culmination of his interwar oeuvre. In Brno, however, he was unable to succeed in the sphere of public architecture, as younger avant-garde architects increasingly dominated competitions. His most prestigious building in the Moravian capital thus became the extension of the Moravian Museum (Moravské zemské muzeum), designed to house the Picture Gallery (1927–1929), as well as his participation in the project for the barracks in Židenice (1925–1926).
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