Bečva spa building

Teplice nad Bečvou

The Bečva Spa Building is a dominant feature of the Teplice spa colonnade. Its functionalist form was created by an extensive reconstruction of a 19th-century classical building according to plans by the Prague architect Karel Kotas in 1931. The 1947-1948 reconstruction of the colonnade, designed by Mr. and Mrs. Oehler, had a significant influence on its final appearance.

The spa area, with its exposed view, is located on the left bank of the River Bečva, where people discovered the healing power of the springs as early as the 16th century. Princess Gabriela Hatzfeld was responsible for its flourishing in the second half of the 19th century. Her coat of arms adorned the attic of the new spa building, which she had built in 1865 “in the Italian style”. The body of this building can be seen in the masonry of the new sanatorium, which became the gateway to the entire complex and the apogee of its vigorous development after the end of the First World War.

In 1930, the spa was acquired by the Central Social Insurance Company in Prague, which began to systematically rebuild and modernise it under the leadership of its long-term and reconfirmed tenant Ladislav Říhovský. As early as 1931, the Prague architect Karel Kotas was commissioned to reconstruct and complete the spa. It was according to his design that the old spa building was radically rebuilt in the “Italian”, i.e. neo-Renaissance style, into a modern four-storey functionalist building with a flat roof outside the spa season from October 1931 to May 1932. The architect connected two short asymmetrical wings with terraces on their roofs to the main building; the left-hand extension was designed as a two-storey one and fully glazed, the right-hand one with three storeys with strip windows. Unlike the annexes, the elevated pavilion is protected by a distinctive but subtle cornice. Kotas broke up the side façade with elegant French windows with balconies. The main building preserved the three-tract layout of the original building, which can be traced thanks to the difference in the number of window axes on the two lower floors.

On the ground, first, and second floors the carbonic baths were extended. At the same time, the architect placed a modern surgery and hydrotherapy according to the Priessnitz model on the second floor. The carbonic baths possessed three rest rooms, a vestibule, and a spacious waiting room. the third and fourth floors there were 36 rooms. The building also housed a passenger lift.

In 1935–1936, also according to Kotasʼ design, Alois Jamborʼs company added a new functionalist building with a spa restaurant and an open colonnade to the main spa building instead of the older wooden one.

Ladislav Říhovský, still the tenant of most of the local spa buildings, approached the Oehlers in 1947 with another adaptation of the sanatorium. He gave another chance to the architectural duo, who were brought to their knees by the Holocaust at the time when they designed his exclusive Teplice villa. Under the name of the Olárs, they would undertake the reconstruction of the original open colonnade designed by Karel Kotas connecting the Bečva spa building with the restaurant and other accommodation facilities. In 1947–1948 the colonnade was glazed with large windows and extended to the rear and one storey was added.

The Bečva Spa Building has undergone partial utilitarian repairs over the years and since the 1980s the complex has become a subject of interest for researchers, while in 1991 the entire complex was entered into the State List of Immovable Cultural Monuments under two register numbers. A major reconstruction was made necessary by the 1997 floods, and in 2003–2005 the building envelope was restored under the supervision of the conservation authority. Sensitively chosen plasters, and, in places, blue coatings of the window structures have restored the central pavilion to an appearance close to that of its interwar splendour. At present the sanatorium is closed for operational reasons.

LJ (translation by SG)

 

Selected literature

Ivan Wahla (ed.), Karel Kotas: 18941973, Brno 2021.

Tomáš Pospěch, Hranice, Teplice nad Bečvou a okolí. Architektura 1815–2018, Hranice 2018.

Tomáš Pospěch, Hranická architektura 1815–1948, Hranice 2000.

Pavel Zatloukal – Vítězslav Kollmann, Moravské lázně v proměnách dvou staletí (exhibition catalogue), Oblastní galerie výtvarných umění v Olomouci 1987. 

Oskar Poříska, Rozvoj léčebných lázní v Československu 1918–1968, Architektura ČSR, 1969, č. 3, pp. 168–170.

 

Sources

lázeňský dům Bečva - Památkový Katalog (pamatkovykatalog.cz)