Winternitzovy mlýny / Winternitz Mills - Pardubice (East Bohemia)
N 50° 02.477 E 015° 46.905
33U E 555977 N 5543513
Monumental art-deco building of Winternitz Automatic Mills (Winternitzovy automatické mlýny), designed by outstanding person of Czech modern architecture Josef Gocár, belongs among the most valuable pieces of industrial architecture in Czech lands.
Waymark Code: WMVB1F
Location: Pardubický kraj, Czechia
Date Posted: 03/26/2017
Views: 20
Monumental art-deco building of Winternitz Automatic Mills (Winternitzovy automatické mlýny), designed by outstanding person of Czech modern architecture Josef Gocár, belongs among the most valuable pieces of industrial architecture in Czech lands. The stunning building balances in architectural features among Art-deco, Art-Nouveau, Cubism and Functionalism. In some books Mills are given as an example of Gocar's switching from Modernism to Cubism.
The automated mills of the Winternitz brothers were built in 1910-1911, togehter with the end of the Chrudimka River regulation, the launch of the nearby water power station and the construction of the iron bridge over the river. Gocár's monumental mills structure, which reminds some features of ancient Mesopotamian architecture (Ishtar gate in Babylon), is a fine evidence of the use of modern architectural design for a factory construction.
The mills, reconstructed and several time modernised (new mill technology) during the past century, were closed in 2013 and nowadays wait for reasonable transformation into some kind of cultural or commercial centre.