The villa in the settlement of Háj u Třeštiny is an early work by architects Bohuslav Fuchs and Josef Štěpánek, designed in the spirit of Rondocubism. It was created during the formation of the Czechoslovak national style and bears the distinctive features of the Kotěr school, influenced by Viennese modernism, the English type of housing, and contemporary expressive and vitalist tendencies.
The villa was designed and built in 1921–1923, simultaneously with the construction of the new hydroelectric power plant. The investors of the entire complex were the brothers Radomír and Karel Plhák and Karl's wife Ellen née Hervertová. It was Ellen, an exceptionally educated and culturally oriented personality with ties to the Prague artistic environment, who was actively involved in the selection of architects and the overall concept of the building.
After contacting Pavel Janák and Jan Kotěra, the design of the new hydroelectric power plant and family villa was entrusted to Kotěra's students Bohuslav Fuchs and Josef Štěpánek, who worked in his studio shortly after graduating and subsequently became independent by establishing a joint practice. Unlike Janák's original project, their design separated the residential and technical parts of the building. The one-story villa with an attic is located in the middle of a large plot of land in the immediate vicinity of the power plant and is oriented with respect to the cardinal points and the relationship to the surrounding landscape. The main residential part faces the sunny south side, while the dining area faces the west side and the sanitary facilities are in the east wing. The facades are divided by projections, concave and convex curved surfaces, arches and circular windows. The motifs of a semicircle, an arch and a fine relief decor of a biomorphic character are used, which connect the exterior with the interior. The layout is based on the English housing model with a central hall as the social core of the house. The dominant element of the interior is a monumental column, from which the ceiling beams radiate, symbolically reminiscent of the tree of life and emphasizing the organic concept of the building. This motif connects architecture with the idea of ​​growth, energy and family life, which also resonates in parallel in the design of the power plant. The interior furnishings were designed by architects and implemented by the Brno UP závody Jana Vaňka.
During World War II, the son of the villa's owners, Karel Plhák Jr., joined the anti-Nazi resistance and the villa housed escaped prisoners of war. In a fabricated trial in the early 1950s, Karel and Radomír Plhák were convicted and imprisoned. Karel Plhák died in the early 1970s, when Ellen and Radomír sold the villa to the JZD, which established a training center there. In 1977, the Olomouc office of the State Institute for the Reconstruction of Historic Towns and Buildings was given a project to reconstruct the villa, which had been under monument protection since 1958. The work was led by the Olomouc architect Antonín Škamrada, who was a student and later assistant of Bohuslav Fuchs and treated his legacy with great respect. Since the 1990s, part of the villa has been used as a guesthouse and restaurant, which are still run by the current owners, who take great care of the building from which they have created a cultural center.
Lucie Valdhansová