leader to the younger men, brought about a temporary improvement in Prague, but without striking at the root of the general poverty that afflicted architecture.
Some artists, however, had already felt the breath of modern art pass over them. Kamil Hilbert, ordered to complete Prague Cathedral in succession to Mocker, but won over to the modern principles of the conservation of monuments, set himself to repair the errors committed by his predecessors. He finished the building of the cathedral, filled in the gaps with motifs of his own devising, but was careful to protect the older part of the edifice, restoring with piety and tact what was dilapidated. Commissioned to build a modern church at Štěchovice, he proved himself an original architect by a creation in which the traditional form and plan received an entirely novel expression. In the same way Dušan Jurkovič, the best artist that Slovakia produced, harmoniously combined, especially in his numerous villas, the new teaching with the peasant inspiration derived from Moravian and Slovak popular art.
It was still necessary, however, to find a rallying cry and a leader. The leader for the younger generation soon appeared in the person of Jan Kotěra, newly arrived from Vienna, where he had just completed his studies. In Vienna, he had entered the Academy of Fine Arts at the very time when Otto Wagner was revolutionizing architecture. Kotěra belonged to the famous circle of Wagner’s pupils, Olbrich, Hoffmann and Plečnik, and with them collaborated in several of the master’s works. Then he came to Prague to replace at the School of Decorative Arts Ohmann, who was leaving for Vienna. He built a flat-dwelling in the Wenceslaus Square, and this was the first attack on official architecture. But as in Prague all were still under the spell of Ohmann’s personality, Kotěra himself hesitated for a while. Although he had already subordinated the decorative side to the
