Zprávy památkové péče 2017, 77(5):550-555

The domestic development of typology, construction, and warehouse architecture

Lukáš Beran

Výzkumné centrum průmyslového dědictví FA ČVUT

At the end of the nineteenth century, thanks to the advancing mechanization of operation, basic silos began to develop independently as storage facilities for grain as well as other goods. Several-storey buildings which, besides transferring goods between trains or vessels and wagons, also provided for their storage, and began to replace original sheds in stations and ports. The Czech lands, or former Czechoslovakia, became the stage for a number of design and operational innovations of this typology. In 1890-1896, the Northern Railway of Emperor Ferdinand rebuilt the southern part of the Brno railway junction for its freight station, designed by construction director Wilhelm Ast at two levels. It also included a warehouse for goods, designed as three-storey, with the arrival of cars on two levels. Use was made not only of concealed concrete, but above all serratedly arranged ramps from which freight cars could be independently load or unload as well as more easily connect them to trains. This design also appeared in 1881, when Hermann von Schwind used it to design the warehouse of the Austrian company for local railways in Olomouc-Hodolany. Between 1921 and 1923, the transport company Bohemia built a warehouse in Bratislava's port, designated by the number 7. Its operating arrangement was created by engineer Albert Brousil. It was modeled after a multi-storey warehouse built in the 1890's in the Rhine harbors, equipped with a range of folding doors on the leading side so that the goods could be loaded directly by a crane. On the top floor he placed a loft grain warehouse, served from the middle tower by an elevator and a carousel switchboard. Stanislav Bechyně, the designer of the executing company Skorkovský, used Emperger's concrete columns with cast iron cores, which were the first in Austro-Hungary that combined them with flat ceilings using mushroom-shaped heads, which he turned diagonally against the construction grid in the construction of the basement. In 1926, engineer Augustin Rödig originally developed the principle of quay, the terraced grading of the leading facade of the port warehouse, when designing the building of the joint-stock company Veřejné skladiště (public warehouse) in Prague-Holešovice. Here, four ramps extend from the second floor, on the third floor the ramps form four receding construction fields, and only the fourth floor recedes by half a tract in all sixteen fields. The ramps are positioned alternately above each other to prevent interfering with the work of a pair of cranes. The Skorkovský company again used the mushroom pillars and the architect František Bartoš showed this construction on its functionalist front facade. The resultant experience with the height distribution of traffic and the construction of flat ceilings carried by the mushroom pillars led to the freight reservoir in Prague's Žižkov, whose buildings were designed in 1930-1931 by architects Karel Caivas and Vladimír Weiss. The railway engineer Miroslav Chlumecký devised its original operational solution, allowing for the collision-free operation of the state railway and a large number of private carriers renting the floors and basement areas of the same facility. Another realization of the Skorkovský company with mushroom ceilings, the warehouse of the Ministry of Posts and Telegraphs in Prague-Vysočany from 1929-1934, shows the direction of further development - this is a warehouse served only by cars.

Keywords: industrial architecture; warehouses; operation; construction; history

Published: December 1, 2017  Show citation