Josef Chochol

1880-1958

Born in Pisek in the Austo-Hungarian empire, he graduated from TU Prague and Vienna’s Akademie der Bildenden Künste in Vienna (where he was taught by Otto Wagner) he became a well known political activist in Prague and important pre WW1 expressionist and cubist architect, later embracing Constructivism.

Chochol came to political maturity at a time of great change, in the aftermath of WW1 he lived in the newly created Czechoslovakia. A member of the Mánes Union of Fine Arts he later broke away to become a founder member of Skupina Vytvarnych Umêlcû, (the Association of Plastic Artists) joining artists such as Josef Gočar, Vlastislav Hofman, Emil Filla, Josef Capek and Pavel Janák and a member of the Deve Tsil Group (chaired by Karel Teigal) which promoted International Modernism.

At the behest of the Komintern, in 1929 he was a founding member of the Left Front Levá Fronta a Czech version of the Soviet Left Front of the Arts an association of avant garde artists, designers and architects also chaired by Karel Teigal.

Member of the Association of Socialist Architects, amongst his most famous designs were several pre WW1 houses on Vyšehrad Hill in Prague, the head quarters of the Union of Engineers on Dittrichova Street and the Kovarovicova Villa in Čeština.

In 1933 Chochol was again a founding member of the Union of Socialist Architects and was a member of the Czech branch of CIAM. In 1935 he participated in the Brussels World Fair.