František Kalivoda
Born |
April 9, 1913 Brno, Austria-Hungary |
---|---|
Died |
May 18, 1971 Brno, Czechoslovakia | (aged 58)
Czech functionalist architect, urbanist, film theorist, organiser, editor, and teacher.
Contents
Born 1913 in Brno. Kalivoda had a significant impact on cultural events in pre-war and post-war Czechoslovakia. He was at his most productive in the 1930s, when functionalism and the New Objectivity reached Czechoslovakia from Germany and Switzerland. His graphic and typographic activity peaked in the late 1930s in his work for the periodicals Ekran and Telehor (1 issue only). Kalivoda's contacts included Bedřich Václavek, Evžen Linhart, Bohuslav Fuchs, Josef Vydra, Zdeněk Rossmann in Czechoslovakia, and László Moholy-Nagy, Jan Tschichold, and Paul Renner abroad.
In 1931-39 he studied at the Czech University of Technology in Brno. His first contract in architecture was to design a villa for choreographer Ivo Váňa Psota in Brno in 1936. In the 1930s he cooperated with Bohuslav Fuchs' AKA interior accessory company. In 1937 he became an external teacher at the School of Crafts in Bratislava and also taught at the School of Crafts in Brno in 1939-42. In 1952-53 he was employed at the Hutní projekt Brno and, for a short time, worked at Stavoprojekt in 1958. From 1959 onwards he worked in Arts and Crafts Brno, a state company.
Kalivoda smoothly transferred his experience in the avant-garde into the field of typographic and graphic work in the 1950s and 1960s - for example, in the publications Kartografie a urbanismus [Cartography and urban studies], Zprávy Zemského studijního a plánovacího ústavu Moravskoslezského [Reports of the Moravian-Silesian study and planning institute], and in publications on Brno.
He was a member of the Czechoslovak CIAM (International Congresses of Modern Architecture) and CIRPAC (International Committee for the Resolution of Problems in Contemporary Architecture), the Block of Architecturally Progressive Associations and the Left Front in Brno. Besides architecture and crafts, he also promoted artistic photography and film and was an outstanding typographer. Died 1971 in Brno.
Works[edit]
- As magazine editor
Ekran 1 (November 1934). Download.
Publications[edit]
- As magazine editor
- Ekran 1, Brno, 1934.
- Telehor: The International Review New Vision (Mezinárodní časopis pro visuální kulturu / Internationale Zeitschrift für visuelle Kultur / Revue internationale pour la culture visuelle) 1:1-2: Special Issue on László Moholy-Nagy, Brno: Fr. Kalivoda, 1936, 138 pp. (in English/Czech/German/French)
- Aka 1-2, Brno, 1937-38.
- Catalogue editor
- Výstava László Moholy-Nagy, Brno 1965, Brno: The House of Arts, 1965. Exhibition catalogue, 24 pp. (in Czech, English, German)
- Selected articles
- "Nové podněty pro optofonetickou tvorbu", Výtvarná výchova 4:2, 1937, pp 1–45. (Czech)
Literature[edit]
- Marek Vondra, František Kalivoda – sociální fotografie, Opava: FPF SLU, 1996. (Czech)
- Zuzana Marhoulová, "František Kalivoda – organizátor brněnské avantgardy", Iluminace 16:4, 2004, pp 89–117. (Czech)
- Zuzana Marhoulová, "František Kalivoda jako filmový kritik a redaktor", Sborník prací Filozofické fakulty brněnské univerzity. O, Řada filmologická, 2:2, 2005, pp 127-151. (Czech)
- Markéta Svobodová, "Applied Typography and Book Graphics in the Work of the Architect František Kalivoda", Umění/Art LIX:5 (2011), pp 426-437. Resumé.
- Markéta Svobodová, "František Kalivoda a László Moholy-Nagy mezi pražskou a brněnskou Levou frontou", Umění/Art LXII:2 (2014), pp 141-153. (Czech)