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Functionalism, with feeling

How an avant-garde architect revolutionized stage design
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By Tony Ozuna
For The Prague Post
August 1st, 2007 issue

COURTESY PHOTO
The Cubist influence is evident in Tröster's drawings for The Makropoulos Affair.
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František Tröster: Artist of Light and Space

at Obecní dům
Ends Sept. 2. Nám. Republiky 5, Prague 1–Old Town. Open daily 10 a.m.–6 p.m.

The stage designer and architect František Tröster (1904–68) led and transformed the Czech theater scene for more than three decades with his original and innovative designs. Several models and an abundance of drawings revealing his ideas for his most successful stage design are currently on view at Obecní dům (Municipal House).
This exhibition was organized in conjunction with the 11th International Competitive Exhibition of Scenography and Theater Architecture, better known as the Prague Quadrennial, which was held in the Industrial Palace at the Výstaviště Exhibition Grounds in June. While the Quadrennial offered a stunning collection of multimedia installations, the Tröster exhibit is by contrast mostly drawings.
Until relatively recently, and particularly in this part of Europe, architects learned how to draw with as much precision and flair as the best art students. This is one of the reasons why architects were incorporated into many of the major European art groups of the past century.
Tröster studied architecture from 1924 to 1928 at the School of Applied Arts in Prague, then worked as a designer for a firm in Algiers. Much of his future work was influenced by this period in Algiers, where he absorbed the ideas of Le Corbusier. Thus, Functionalism provided the essential architectural model for his later stage designs.
His design for the grounds around the National Museum in Prague (1931) and his competition designs for school buildings, including the Academy of Music and Drama in Bratislava (1937–38), are placed at the beginning of the exhibit. There are also photographs of architectural models from the 1930s. These black-and-white abstract photos are similar to the works of avant-garde photographers of the same period, such as László Moholy-Nagy and Man Ray.
In 1934, Tröster joined the faculty of the School of Arts and Crafts in Bratislava, where he soon became head of the display department. He also began working with the Slovak National Theater, and, in 1935, with Czech theater director Jiří Frejka.
Tröster’s philosophy as a scenographer led him to create distinctive stage work over the next 30 years. In style, he practiced an “emotional Functionalism,” which meant that both the functional qualities and the expressive and emotional qualities of a building should be in every part of the design. He demonstrated that set design, through creative lighting and stage construction, could be an essential element in theater productions, often determining other aspects such as direction, acting, music and movement. By studying and working off the dramatic text, he became essentially a co-creator in the production.
The preparatory drawings that Tröster made for his stage designs vary in style and follow movements in avant-garde and modern art. His drawings for the design of The Makropoulos Affair by Leoš Janáček are striking black-and-white images done in a Futurist-Cubist style. When he returns to this style again for Alan Berg’s Wozzeck (1959), the images of buildings are menacing and almost lifelike.
On the other hand, there are exquisite landscapes in color pastels for Janáček’s The Cunning Little Vixen (1954), and the colorful scenery for Smetana’s The Bartered Bride (1936) is essentially an Impressionist image on the verge of Abstract Expressionism, thus making it an image almost 20 years ahead of its time.
His most abstract drawings were created for Zdeněk Fibich’s The Death of Hippodamia (1961). These images of shadows and abstract shapes, even when depicting landscapes, may have caused general confusion or uneasiness among stage construction workers seeking more concrete guidelines for their work.
Tröster’s most internationally acclaimed design was for Gogol’s Government Inspector (1936). He created stage scenes that had no parallel on the international stage, with one scene involving the drunken character Klestakov described as follows: “It is not the character who is drunk and reeling, but his environment.” Surrealistic drawings were the best way to depict the ideas for creating this set.
At the center of the exhibit there is a small reproduction of the stage for František Salzer’s The Storm (1941). It is a lifted cross made of ragged wooden planks with stark branches overhead — a reflection of the oppressive atmosphere of the war.
After the 1942 assassination of Reinhard Heydrich in Prague, an actress from the production, along with Tröster’s sister and her husband, were imprisoned in Terezín by the Nazis for their involvement with the resistance movement. They subsequently died in a concentration camp.
Tröster later said, “I don’t remember that, at any other time before or after that, I’ve created an atmosphere so close to the spirit of the piece.” While the diminutive stage reproduction does not adequately convey the scenographer’s original work, there are several mixed-media drawings to evoke the feeling he describes.
Tröster’s most important scenes attempted to thrill audiences by creating sets that open up, break apart, buckle, self-destruct or even completely change their original position, all before their eyes. It is unfortunate that this exhibit doesn’t have at least one or more larger-scale reproductions of the sets to reenact the original magic.
The vast selection of drawings is impressive and evocative enough. Still, this exhibit could have done more to evoke the true spirit and emotional atmosphere of the world that Tröster created on the stage.

Tony Ozuna can be reached at features@praguepost.com


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