Functionalism in Film

The latest film by Jan Hřebejk is set in an era preceding his film Cosy Dens. Three separate, but chronological feature films were filmed as part of one large project. Three films, three worlds. The trilogy is unique not only thanks to the screenwriter Petr Jarchovský and director Jan Hřebejk, but also thanks to the overall visual element of the film. I spoke to production designer Jan Kadlec, who brought the spirit of functionalism to life in the film, about film architecture on the set during the shooting of interior scenes.

I feel as if I suddenly appeared in the 1930s. If I hadn’t walked through the film studio before, I would never believe that all this is “just” props. What role does this house play in the film?

This is a villa owned by a hairdresser and his family. We can still sense a bit of modernism here, the house is slightly inclined towards more classical elements, but there are also later, more modern things such as this staircase that refers to the Rothmayer villa in Střešovice, in Prague. There are allusions to traditionalism, but the whole is functionalist. You can see it on the doors or other smaller elements. It is a relatively small villa where everything is based on the screenplay, which sets the visual side of the film. None of the houses in the Garden Store films actually exists, they are film fictions designed by citing real functionalist architecture.

In which part of the story are we right now?

We are currently shooting the third part of the film, that means the 1950s. Children who were born at the start of the trilogy are adults now, they are nineteen. When we were shooting the 1930s it was a very elegant villa that respected pure functionalist architecture in all respects. The family has gone through certain things which shows in the interior of the villa in the 1950s. The hairdresser’s hairdressing salon was nationalised, the family went down in the world. They try to manage with what they have, what they find or what someone gives them. Furniture and materials are mixed. Apart from the architecture there are still some period elements, for example period wallpaper. This design is the work of Václav Špála. Next door there is a wallpaper designed František Kysela. Each of the three cinematic worlds, the world of hairdresser Ota, gardener Miloš and patriot Jindřich, who was played by Jiří Kodet in Cosy Dens, has its specific colours. Because the hairdresser and owner of this villa has a hairdressing salon in the Adria passage way built in the style of Rondocubism with interior in golden colours, the same colour tonality and certain small architectural elements are used in his private abode too so that the audiences have a clearer link.

What are the essential differences between the work of a production designer and the work of an architect and what are the similarities?

As a production designer, I formulate the visual look of the whole story. My job is called film architect in Czech, but in the real sense of the term film architect is for example my colleague Ing. arch. Patrik Stašek whose job is the technical side of all decorations. Following my vision and drawings Patrik Stašek works out the technical side of things. Lower in the hierarchy of this department are the so-called drawers, otherwise also architects and this list of architects’ professions ends with the “set” architect whose task is to check the set during shooting.

When you are building a film set you need take into account extra distances and other extra space. All that is usually done in the form of removable walls. However, here it’s different. We are filming three feature films in one go. Because of the actors’ busy schedule all the interiors need to be shot in one block within a month and a half. We construct the same buildings in the exterior with roads and the surroundings. But to go back to interiors, the idea here was to get as many openings and as much empty space as possible so that we could avoid using removable walls. Each removable wall means extra work and complications. Besides, a sufficient number of well designed openings gives us a greater opportunity to better combine individual planes in the picture.

What is the relationship between film and “non-film” architecture?

Film architecture is sometimes inspired by or reconstructs already non-existent things. Sometimes it also plays the role of a visionary for real architecture. It is interconnected. Some futuristic visions in film often predict future architecture or design. I see the difference between these two design worlds in individual limits; standard architects need to respect their clients’ often very problematic ideas, respect norms and regulations, authorities, conservationists and similar institutions. The film world allows us to disregard these limits. To illustrate: how many real architects can design and build three large functionalist villas within two months? (laughing) Yes, they are just production sets, but the construction of these houses is real. In the US they build using the same technologies, which means film sets could be used in real life with just small amendments. However, everything is done much faster. Today we build it, next month we pull it down and everything ends up in a waste container.

Do you mind?

We create these worlds for the film, not for sets themselves. For me it is important to see on screen that everything worked as it should have and the information value was correctly formulated.

What does your cooperation with the director, screenwriter and other makers of the film look like?

The production designer is usually not selected by the screenwriter, more often by the director or producer. After reading the screenplay, I need to define for myself what the story wants to say and how I could visually add to, support and enrich the literary idea. A written formulation of the look usually comes first; it is a concept complemented with a visual “moodboard” which consists of drawings and photos and presents the visual feel as a whole. Otherwise I don’t usually intervene in the script editing or casting.

We left the film studios and are now in the art department office where all the materials for creating the visual look of the Garden Store trilogy are made. What does work in an architectural studio specialising in film design look like?

At the end of March I showed the director the first visual concept, which was the base for everything else. Until recently there were the draughtsmen sitting at these computers everywhere, who were making drawings, visualisations and all the technical details.

What is the primary motif or idea that you projected into the design of Garden Store?

The Garden Store trilogy presents the story of three different worlds. Jindřich’s apartment, Ela’s villa and Miloš’s garden centre. Everything is centred around the destiny of the people and their world. You might remember the more specific character of Jindřich, the patriot, from Cosy Dens, a film which is a loose continuation of the trilogy. In the 1930s our society was very developed and it is reflected in the architecture. The visual side of the film captures what we managed to create in the past, but primarily what we were able to destroy. As if in cycles we create something and then negate it. We constantly contest tradition, the new generation often negates the work of previous generations trying to create a new tradition. Abroad the credit of a business is built on a generational tradition. Whereas the socialist thinking in our country wanted to demolish this “elitism”. This is reflected in the architecture and the overall visual concept of the film.

In what ways did you manage to project the spirit of the first half of the 20^th century into the film?

It was a time when new city quarters were being built. Spořilov, Zahradní město, Střešovice. Villas were often built on peripheries. There were just fields, no full-grown trees as we can see in photos from the times. Everything was new back then, freshly built. Those villas of course exist to this day, but they are damaged and it would be very difficult to adapt them for the purpose of the film, to get rid of the surrounding vegetation and the surrounding more modern housing. For this reason we decided to build everything anew in the end; both the interiors and the exteriors. We are building the exteriors on a greenfield site, including a new road and surroundings. We will add the other houses in postproduction gradually. At the end of the trilogy the street will be full of houses. Functionalism is not the only thing I admire. But in this film I use it to show the period when the nation was at its peak socialwise, which was well demonstrated in functionalist architecture. It is not only architecture as such that is important, but also what we try to say through it. What we’ve created and what we’ve destroyed.

The exteriors of the family garden store were filmed in Veltrusy. How did production design help to create the film story here?

In the screenplay it is described as a “small family garden centre with a gabled roof”. The result doesn’t resemble that at all, but of course it would be difficult to formulate what we wanted to say on a small garden shop. That’s why we based it on progressive and stylistically pure architecture, which shows that it is a huge family investment. The gardener’s villa can evoke Josef Gočár’s architecture. There was a vision of a family business and handing the house down to future generations. No one expected that in ten years’ time all the greenhouses would be nationalised. The gardener’s house and its concept look more like a larger apartment. The ground floor is the technical section and a small shop, there are greenhouses and garden patches everywhere. The house is like a levitating boat above the greenhouses and it is all glass so that the gardener’s family can see what they have created around the house. When the greenhouses are nationalised in the 1950s, they are forced to watch how their long constructed property is being gradually destroyed.

What is typical of the third “film world”, Jindřich’s flat?

When Jindřich returns from the concentration camp after the war he receives a luxury flat in Dejvice for his resistance activity. Before the war the apartment belonged most probably to a rich factory owner, it was confiscated by the Germans during the war and after the war Jindřich gets it as a gift – confiscated property, for his resistance activities. The original functionalist interior – white walls in contrast to dark furniture – was kept preserved by its previous German owner in its original architectural purity. It is the character of patriotic Jindřich that changes the style of the interior by the wrong wallpaper and transferring the light from the originally white walls to the pale human faces. People did this because they didn’t want to live among Germans’ furniture. They didn’t realise though that the furniture as well as the whole interior was designed by a Czech functionalist architect. With his patriotic redesigning Jindřich destroys the values he takes so much pride in. I think it is very typical of us. I see the effort to rehabilitate the society in the context of the quoted 1930s as impossible, because there is nothing to rehabilitate. This is our true self.