held absolute sway, Kotěra had little chance of building, so that his early creations are nearly all in the provinces. The theatre at Prostějov in Moravia revealed for the first time his profound grasp of the mass to be dominated and the space to be divided, the vigour of his arrangement, the charm of his simple decoration, thoroughly adapted to the architectonic functions. Another example is the Králové Hradec Museum, though unfortunately only a partial execution of a magnificent plan. In the end, Kotěra won universal acceptance. He erected, in Prague, the Institute for retired railwaymen, built a charming settlement of working-class houses at Louny, transformed the Castle at Radboř into a comfortable modern residence, and worked in Jugoslavia. The founder and first leader of modern Czech architecture, he still remains one of its most energetic and original representatives.
The group of moderns in the “Mánes” Society, with Kotěra at its head, soon felt itself strong enough to bid defiance to official architecture. The School of Decorative Arts and, later, the Academy of Fine Arts, to which Kotěra had gone on as professor, giving up his former post to his friend, the Slovene Plečnik, besides arranging exhibitions abroad and competitions, served the militants as centres for the organization of their offensive. Pupils of Ohmann, like Bendelmayer and Dryák, were among them, and newcomers from Wagner’s School, like Josef Engel, author of the improvements on the Letná Hill in Prague, and Bohumil Hübschman, the adroit exponent of civic architecture, lent their support to the movement. Among Kotěra’s direct disciples, the architects Otokar Novotný and Josef Gočár were in the vanguard of the fighters. In the ensuing struggle, the younger men gained ground but slowly, and not without losses. True, it was only an episode in the great battle of modern architecture that had spread from England to Belgium and from there extended itself to us by way of Germany. The new school threw overboard
