page_title: Henry Kulka
section_title: Late work in Europe
hierarchical_section_title: Henry Kulka / Career / Late work in Europe
caption_attribution_description: English: This substantial Raumplan villa employs a sweeping helical floor and level plan enabling comfortable movement throughout the house. The rooms peel off the Raumplan via a functional stair set that is oval and enables fast vertical movement over the same levels. The structure has been placed under historic monument preservation status and was partially restored in the early 2000s.
context_page_description: Henry Kulka was a Moravian and New Zealand modern architect who was a key figure in the development of Raumplan architecture in central Europe between 1919 and 1938. Kulka brought this approach to spatial planning and the Loosian traditions of natural material craftsmanship to modern building in New Zealand where he was a pioneer of modern architecture.
context_section_description: After Loos's death in 1933, Kulka continued and expanded their former architectural practice, maintaining their Vienna office and opening a second satellite office in Hradec Králové in Czechoslovakia to service commissions across Bohemia and Moravia.
  Between 1932-1939 Kulka evolved new cubic Raumplan Villa and Apartment typologies. In addition to functionality, Kulka's approach was humanistic. He considered the feelings of  people inhabiting the space of his buildings, striving to give them a sense of harmony and well being.  Among these works are the 1932 Weissmann House in Hietzing Vienna, the 1933 Oskar Semler Raumplan Apartment in Pilsen, the 1934 Kantor Cubic Raumplan Villa in Jablonec, the 1934 small mountain Raumplan for Dr. Samuel Teichner in Spicak in Zelezna Ruda and the Villa Holzner Raumplan in Hronov, near Nachod.
        
  A fine example of Kulka's Raumplan work at this time is the Villa Kantor, 1934. This cubic Raumplan was tailored to the requirements of a medical doctor who needed a functional consulting room nestled within the corpus of a comfortable family home. The exterior envelope of the building is cubic and rendered in fine stucco punctured by symmetrical fenestration in the front façade and a functional asymmetrical positioning of fenestration at the sides of the house. The symmetry of the façade is maintained through the use of a classical wall projection which accommodates internal circulation. The  interior of the Raumplan villa is clad with light colored woods and marble. The house has larger windows than Kulka's villas with Loos. Kulka lets in more light and incorporates a lighter chromatic selection of cladding materials. It is in the more relaxed and subtle management of spatial transition that the Villa Kantor evolves raumplanning, and points toward changes Kulka would bring to his later work in New Zealand.
caption: Villa Holzner Raumplan, south facing façade.Designed and realised by architect Henry Kulka in 1937.
exif: {"Image PhotometricInterpretation": "2", "Image XResolution": "400", "Image YResolution": "400", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "Adobe Photoshop CC 2015 (Windows)", "Image DateTime": "2019:01:22 11:58:36", "Image ExifOffset": "168", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0221", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2019:01:17 17:01:41", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "409", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "461"}