Studio: svobodová blaha
Author: Anna Svobodová
Ondřej Blaha
Contact E-mail: studio@svobodovablaha.com
Social media: www.instagram.com/svobodovablaha
Studio address: Hermanova 34, 170 00 Prague, Czech Republic
Project location: Prague
Project country: Czech Republic
Project year: 2021
Completion year: 2021
Gross Floor Area: 148 m²
Usable Floor Area: 133 m²
Cost: 75 000 €
Photographer: svobodová blaha
Collaborator Paintings: Ivana Svobodová, Ladislav Klusáček
Carpenter: Petr Datel
Masonry: Kámen Engineering
Locksmith: PLECHEM [Jan Luksík]

Secession Villa Apartment hallway. — A compact hallway goes to a room with parquet wood flooring.

Secession Villa Apartment furnitures. — The cabinet furniture is designed in stained and oiled plywood combined with stained and lacquered MDF.

Secession Villa Apartment art pieces. — Paintings are installed in a piece of huge built-in furniture in the kitchen.

Secession Villa Apartment stairs. — The apartment’s staircase and stair handrail is fully composed of wood materials.

Secession Villa Apartment kitchen. — The kitchen is confounded with wood flooring, white wall-to-ceiling, and dark kitchen and kitchen island all complemented with hung art pieces.

Secession Villa Apartment bathroom. — The bathrooms are materially complemented by stone and brass used in the construction of the dividing wall.

The project brief was to refurbish the interior of one floor of a multi-generational Secession villa and to allocate a separate apartment unit due to the need for a greater degree of privacy for a young couple. The concept of three main passage rooms was retained, which now serve as a living kitchen, the middle room as a study with a library, and two separate dressing rooms. The third room within this enfilade is completed by a bedroom, from which a second bathroom with shower is newly accessible. The latter originally served as a kitchenette, accessible only from the level of the intermediate staircase. The second zone of the apartment is understood and used rather as a more spacious working bathroom with a washing machine and a spare room for a guest or possibly a child.

The design of the dividing wall with the entrance door, which divides the stair hall and changes its proportions, became an important and sensitive issue. The new layer is strong sculpturally and in its expression, resulting in a complex design. It works with different types of glass and mirrors and with the color of the dark stained ceiling beams. Their rhythm and distinctive pattern on the ceiling remain continuous even after the staircase has been partitioned. The dividing wall is deep and provides much-needed storage space when entering the apartment. Its geometry is slightly disturbed and turns the mirrored surface into the center of gravity of the staircase landing. It becomes an object, a sculpture that creates spatial tension while maintaining the generosity of the lobby with confidence and humility to the existing interior.

A similar concept of colour, material solution, and the conception of individual pieces of built-in furniture as authorial and artistic objects is continued in other parts of the apartment. The rooms are enlivened, for example, by a layer of original ceiling paintings, which were discovered during the construction process and could be partially restored. Elsewhere, the ceilings are complemented by a new layer of paintings that blend with atypical and distinctive furniture, steel lintels, or vaulted ceilings, creating different characters and moods in each room.

The cabinet furniture is designed in stained and oiled plywood combined with stained and lacquered MDF, complemented by fragments of original furniture, drawers, etc. The furniture surfaces are combined in many almost imperceptibly different shades and darknesses of brown and blue-green. The bathrooms and kitchen are materially complemented by stone and brass used in the construction of the dividing wall or as cladding for the kitchen worktop, gradually acquiring a natural patina.