The functionalist passenger building of the Teplice nad Bečvou railway station is an important example of industrial architecture from the interwar period. It was designed by Miloš Fikr and the Prague architect Josef Danda, a specialist in railway construction.
The conversion of the single-track branch line into a double-track main line and the increasing number of visitors to the town created the main prerequisites for the construction of a new switching station in the spa town of Teplice nad Bečvou. The development of the plans was entrusted to Josef Danda, who in 1936 accepted a position at what was then the Directorate of Railways in Olomouc. The Teplice station, which was a major project in the context of his work, was built as part of the great construction boom on the line from Hranice to Púchov. Danda also worked on other projects along this line, such as stations, warehouses, signal boxes, towers, waterworks, and heating plants. In just three years, together with a designer and a budget specialist, he produced designs for fifty-two buildings, twenty-nine of which were built. The realisation of the station building was taken care of by the Hranice master-builder Josef Vostřez.
The site for the station building was located on sloping terrain and in an acute angle enclosed by the track and a road. Danda followed the solution adopted by his predecessor, the railway architect Miloš Fikr, which was to create a building with an asymmetrical layout and simple cubic volumes. Viewed from the street, the two-storey building was decorated with characteristic accessories of functionalist architecture, a flagpole with the emblem of the railways, a neon sign, and a clock. The preserved glass surfaces of the public part of the station, especially the summer waiting room, which, together with a number of columns and brackets, add subtlety to the strictly functionalist reinforced concrete building, act as a distinctive motif.
When viewed from the tracks, the building appears to be at ground level because of the steep terrain it overcomes. The station has a double face, appearing simpler from the platforms,and more richly articulated and monumental on the side of the main entrance, which faces the River Bečva and the spa complex that was growing at the same time.
Already in the building from the early period, the author had paid particular attention to the layout, which was subject to the spa season in addition to the uneven terrain. During this period (from May to September) the station was at its busiest and the entire building was in use. On the ground floor at the level of the road, there was a lobby, passenger check-in areas, a passenger ticket office, luggage storage, and a cafeteria with a partially covered outdoor terrace. On the first floor there were offices, a waiting room, toilets, and a service apartment for the stationmaster. Outside the spa season, the ground floor rooms were not used and only the rooms at the level of the platforms were available to passengers.
With changes in the operation of Czech Railways, the condition of the valuable station building, with its underpass and smaller service buildings by the tracks, deteriorated. Neither was the situation helped at all by the monument protection status which was granted to the building by the Ministry of Culture of the Czech Republic in 1991. A brighter future dawned after 2016, when the town of Hranice opened negotiations with the Railway Infrastructure Administration on the reconstruction of the station complex. Between 2016 and 2019, the first phase of a rigorous heritage restoration funded by both entities took place. Despite some partial setbacks (the demolition of a detached warehouse with a ramp, the disappearance of authentic tiles in the underpass), this important monument of functionalism has been successfully rehabilitated. The town of Hranice has found a meaningful use for part of the passenger building, building an information centre for the nearby Hranice Abyss, a natural monument that is no less unique than the Teplice railway station itself.
LJ (translation by SG)
Selected literature
Tomáš Pospěch, Hranice, Teplice nad Bečvou a okolí. Architektura 1815–2018, Hranice 2018.
Karel Hájek, Architekt Josef Danda, Praha 2007.
Tomáš Pospěch, Hranická architektura 1815–1948, Hranice 2000.
Eva Šmídová, Budovy železničních stanic v Pardubicích, Klatovech a Chebu (bakalářská práce), Ústav pro dějiny umění FFUK, Praha 2020, pp. 23–26.
Josef Moucha, Nádraží architekta Josefa Dandy, Architektura ČSR, 1986, č. 1, pp. 39–40.
Josef Danda, Podíl architekta na úkolech železničního plánování, Architekt SIA, 1944, č. 7, pp.137–159.
Sources
výpravní budova železniční stanice - Památkový Katalog (pamatkovykatalog.cz)
