The sculpture Highland Spring by the Brod sculptor and university lecturer Karel Hyliš (1928–2024) was intended for the Žižkov II housing estate, which was built in the second half of the 1970s to a design by the architect Jaroslav Fikar from the Pardubice branch of Stavoprojekt Hradec Králové. As with other housing estates at the time, the project included a “civic amenities centre” – a grocery store, restaurant and services pavilion, which was to house a general practitioner’s office, a hairdresser, and a dry cleaner. A work of art was also planned for this space, which was a legally required part of all public constructions. Fikar’s 1974 perspective design shows a horizontal sculpture in front of the complex, but this was only a conceptual idea, as such elements typically only took form in the final stage of construction.

Jaroslav Fikar designed all the buildings in the service centre as single-storey structures with prefabricated steel frames and flat roofs topped with sheet-metal parapets. The facades were partially clad with glass mosaic. The shop and restaurant buildings were adjacent to each other, while the services pavilion stood alone, but visually all three buildings formed a small courtyard, referred to in the project as the “courtyard” or “atrium”. It was here that the sandstone statue of Highland Spring was eventually located.

Unfortunately, we only know the allegorical figure of Spring from a single historical photograph. A young girl, in a shy gesture, lifts a handful of flowers to her nose with her left hand, while in her right she holds a single blossom in her palm and gathers the drapery that falls around her hips and legs.  In the case of Spring, the artist reduced the stylization of the human figure—so typical of his figural work—to a subtle simplification of forms that remain organic and rounded. 

Unfortunately, the delicacy and vulnerability of Spring was confirmed after 2000. Sometime in the first decade of the new millennium, the sculpture was knocked over and seriously damaged. Its broken parts were removed from the site and are now missing. The shop and restaurant still occupy the original centre, but this busy yet uninviting visual space feels the absence of Spring...