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Ladislav Lábus' golden touch

Czech architect has made a career out of restoring Prague's cityscape

By Brooke Edge
For The Prague Post
October 17th, 2007 issue

Atelier Lábus

Komunardů 5
Prague 7
Tel.: 220 808 258

COURTESY PHOTO
The historic Langhans Palace was one of Lábus' favorite projects because it was "very complicated."
Jan Přerovský/THE PRAGUE POST
Award-winning Czech architect Ladislav Labus says he tries to find "a good border between what's old and what's new" in all his projects.
Good recommendations mean the world in choosing a business partner. In the construction industry, where so much bad blood can come from delayed deadlines, inflated budgets and compromised visions, a good recommendation can be hard to find.
Ladislav Lábus, the renowned Czech architect whose creations have gone on to win numerous design awards, apparently doesn’t have this problem. His reputation, at least among the real estate community, seems to have acquired something of a golden touch. He has restored some of the city’s most impressive palaces and remodeled the homes of local celebrities.
“Mr. Lábus is very good for the heritage of the city,” gushes Zuzana Meisnerová-Wismer, director of Prague’s Langhans Galerie, which was part of Lábus’ remodel four years ago.
Twice he has taken home the Grand Prix of the Society of Czech Architects Association, essentially the industry’s Academy Awards. In 1998, Lábus won for his work on the Retirement Home in Český Krumlov. And in 2003, he was honored again for his renovation of Langhans Palace, an impressive 18th-century building off Wenceslas Square that used to house the national photo studio.
“For the architect it is a good opportunity, or base, when you live in a city like Prague, where you can see examples not only of traditional architecture,” Lábus says, “but also modern architecture of the 1930s.”
It’s the city’s modern works, in particular, that Lábus has emulated through his own designs.
“My guru is not Frank Gehry,” Lábus says, referring to the famed Canadian architect who designed Prague’s Dancing House. “My guru was Louis Kahn when I was young.”
Indeed, the austere lines and seeming simplicity of the influential mid-20th-century architect’s acclaimed designs can be seen in Lábus’ work, which he casually describes as “minimalism — less is more.”
His workspace, however, would lead visitors to different conclusions.
Atelier Lábus, located in Holešovice, is a modest space occupied by a handful of desks and stacks of paperwork. It resembles an eccentric university professor’s office far more than the usual image of a sleek architectural studio. But hidden among the towering piles of papers and sagging shelves lies fragments of Lábus’ laborious building designs, a mesh of past and present.
“If you want to renovate buildings,” Lábus explains, “it is important to find a good border between what is old and freedom for the new.”
When renovating classic Czech structures or even private homes, “we like to bring the new to the site,” he says, “but we also want to adapt to the surrounding conditions.”
Born in Prague in 1951, Lábus grew up admiring his architect father, a point that likely colored his own career path but by no means, Lábus admits, determined it. More influential, he says, was his love of art. And since he couldn’t paint, Lábus went in search of something else, which he found in architecture.
After earning his degree at the Czech Technical University in Prague, where he is now a professor of architecture, Lábus got straight to work.
“He has respect for the old city of Prague but with modern thinking,” says Meisnerová-Wismer, who hired Lábus to reconstruct the Langhans Palace. “It was important for both of us to add a modern part, because we are living in a modern time.”
Meisnerová-Wismer’s family inherited the government-run palace shortly after the fall of communism. The tattered building had once been home to Atelier Langhans, a photography studio of great cultural importance.
The studio had been founded in the 1880s by Jan Langhans, Meisnerová-Wismer’s great-grandfather, and served as the national photo studio, the destination of celebrities, politicians and others of importance who needed a portrait. But, after it came under government control, no money went into its upkeep, according to Meisnerová-Wismer.
“After restitution it was in a very bad condition,” she recalls, with no electricity and great deal of water damage. “It was a ruin.”
Meisnerová-Wismer, a former television director in Switzerland, began researching reconstruction options in 1991.
“I spoke with one other architect, and he recommended Lábus,” she says. Although Lábus did not have many other realized buildings at that point, “I trusted him,” she says.
“I saw how he thinks, and I liked his philosophic kind of thinking … not only about architecture, but sociology, urban planning and the psychology of the city.”
Lábus calls the palace renovation “one of the most interesting projects in our office, because it was very complicated.”
The property consisted of multiple buildings on a long, narrow lot. Additionally, because of its location along Vodičkova street, a tram line passes just two meters from the main door. There is also heavy foot traffic both in front of and behind the building, which backs up to the Franciscan Gardens.
“What we wanted,” Lábus says, “was to keep the variety of those tiny spaces.” He restored and connected the buildings and put in a new, similarly styled building at the rear of the property. He also added height to the palace.
The top level, out of sight from those directly below on the street, resembles the slatted sides of a beach house.
A surprise for architect and client alike came with the discovery of a locked cupboard during the renovation. Inside, 9,000 glass plates imprinted with negatives of prewar portraits were found squirreled away by Atelier Langhans. Today, those historic photos of emperors, actors and aristocrats are on display in the Langhans Galerie, located on the property.
“I like to build buildings for people,” Lábus says. “When you work for a company, you speak with managers. … I like private clients. We speak with the people who will live there and have a relationship to what they have built.”
Meisnerová-Wismer can vouch for that.
“I think the collaboration with Lábus was a lucky exception,” she says, “because the investors and the architect don’t always collaborate. … I’m very happy with the result.”

Brooke Edge can be reached at specialsection@praguepost.com


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