Zprávy památkové péče 2019, 79(3):261-270 | DOI: 10.56112/zpp.2019.3.04

"Building a Czechoslovak-Yugoslav friendship." The Crystalex glass complex in Nový Bor

Petr Freiwillig

NPÚ ÚOP v Liberci

In the Lusatian Mountains, an area where the tradition of Czech glassmaking dates back to the Middle Ages, a modern glass factory was built between 1965-68 which aimed to concentrate all phases of hand-made utility glass production under one roof. The factory was built on the outskirts of Nový Bor, a town that boasts a very long tradition of glass production and trade dating back to the 18th century. At the time, Nový Bor and the nearby town of Kamenický Šenov were trading around the globe, giving rise to the Borsko-Šenov glassworks region. After most of the wood-burning smelters disappeared, the local glassmakers concentrated on refining; only in the last third of the 19th century did smelters begin to re-appear in the area, this time heated by coal and generator gas. During the Second World War, long-distance gas was piped from Záluží near Litvínov to the glassworks area, resulting in the connection of all local glassworks by 1956. The physical and moral obsolescence of a large part of the glassworks, receiving scant investment after the war, led to the construction of a new greenfield plant in the early 1960s. This was also a political decision, greatly influenced by the phenomenal success of Czech glass at the World Expo '58 in Brussels. Buildings and entire complexes were built up using typification, unification, prefabrication, and modular coordination. These terms soon became canon. For these multipurpose and combined production buildings, great emphasis was placed on versatility and adaptability. Keeping with the humanistic tendencies of post-war Europe, great attention was paid to the level of the working environment and facilities for non-work activities, works of art, greenery, and especially the architecture itself. The tender project documentation for the glass complex was created at Skloprojekt Praha between 1962 and 1964. The lengthy delivery times of domestic Czech suppliers, as well as the significant stimulus in developing Czechoslovak-Yugoslav trade cooperation, led to the construction being realized by Yugoslav companies. The Prague Skloprojekt company remained the general designer, but the Yugoslavian supplier Union Engineering brought Trudbenik Belgrade as the design engineer for the construction part and Monter Zagreb for the installation work and part of the technological distribution. Czech technology suppliers also participated in the project. The Yugoslav partners brought a number of positive changes to the project which mainly affected the architectural design of the entrances. The original concept of hand manufacture in the metallurgical primary production section was abandoned in 1972 in favor of automatic line production, which turned out to be an economically more promising path for the further development of the plant. The automated production of utility glass, as well as machine grinding, was implemented for the first time in Czechoslovakia in this plant.

Keywords: industrial architecture, glass industry, Nový Bor, Crystalex glass complex

Published: September 1, 2019  Show citation