Slightly different panel house
The first panel house in Prague was built 55 years ago in Staré Ďáblice in U Prefy Street and it was a little different from those built at present. It differed in apartment sizes as well as in their arrangement. The building was built as an experiment in 1953 from a newly developed system called skeletopanel the author of which was the architect Miloslav Wimmer. The first tenants move into the building in 1955. Miloslav Wimmer had started working on the project as early as in 1948 and he used the so called T16 type, which allowed for more generous inner space in the standardized development.
Innovative work
A number of innovative solutions were used for the construction, such as lightweight ceiling panels, which was patented. While it was being developed, bionics were used for the first time (i.e. analogy with the development of natural construction of horsetail in 150 million years). Another innovation was the ornamental surface of the panel improving its technological properties. As a new prototype, the construction had come across various obstacles. The opponent expert opinion of structural engineers said that the construction is “on the verge of liability“ and that to live in a house made of individual panels would not be safe. The construction had not gone on until these opinions were disproved by a concrete construction expert of great renown, Stanislav Bechyně who confirmed the outcome of the first test proving the safety of the frame.
Astonishing sizes of apartments
Unlike later panel houses, this one did not have a flat roof but a gabled one with a slight inclination of the roof. It also had an ornamental cornice and the panels were covered with a facade. It offered its inhabitants good enough comfort of twelve three-bedroom apartments with the surface of almost 100 m², compared to the three-bedroom apartments of 1970’s with the surface of 60 m² approx.
Most other panel houses built in different way
Apart from several other realizations, the construction of skeletopanel houses did not go on. The ferroconcrete frame was expensive and there was not big enough capacity and technology for its mass production (both the frames and the panels were made right on the building site). These were replaced by G40 types of buildings as well as other types, which made use of prefabricated panels. The first G40 panel house with five floors was built in 1953 in Zlín. The first bigger estates in Prague consisting of this type of houses were built in Na Zelené lišce in Pankrác (1954 - 1955). Panel houses of that time were decorated with various details, house signs, arcade entrances, mosaics. Unfortunately these features soon disappeared due to mass development.
Germans knew how to make use of panel houses
In the socialist Czechoslovakia of that time, panel houses meant a quick solution to the housing crisis. Yet the fact is that panel houses were built elsewhere as well. Germans, for instance, used panels in the bombed out Nuremberg. These were not buildings scattered on plains as we know from the majority of housing estates. They were used in typical development with great variability.
