Page:Modern and contemporary Czech art (1924).pdf/95

 built bridges and stations for the new railways. Later, theatres, banks and commercial buildings were to be added. To meet the requirements of modern life, Prague once more Czech, had to find adequate means of expression, and we were fortunate enough to light upon a generation of architects already thoroughly versed in the magnificent style nouveau, whose principles Gottfried Semper had established in such sure and penetrating fashion.

The earliest representative of this renaissance is Ignaz Ullmann, trained in Vienna under Van der Nüll and Siccardsburg. More gifted than any of his predecessors, he also stood out from the ruck of his contemporaries by virtue of the freshness of his invention. He had the good fortune to receive and carry out some important commissions. He began with the, the first large building erected by the big financiers in Prague. Here he harmoniously blends the useful with the beautiful, adding to an austere but dignified interior a monumental façade chaste and vigorous in design. The defective accommodation that so greatly hampered the drama in Prague was remedied by his provisional Theatre, at once simple and practical in its plan. He excelled in the construction of private town mansions, similar to the smaller palazzi so dear to the Renaissance Italians, such as the Lažanský Palace, where he utilized French Renaissance themes, and the Šebek mansion, for which he was able to employ stone, so much sought after by the nouveau style architects. He also gave the Praguers the great Polytechnic, their first educational building worthy of a civilized nation. But the most attractive of Ullmann’s creations is the charming : the solidity of the façade is relieved by lively tracery, in keeping with the special character of the institution, through the addition of sgraffiti which embellish and lighten it, making up for the somewhat inferior quality of the material.