Vintage Stadium Bench, 1970s

Details

Description

This is an original and rare stadium bench designed and produced in the 1970’s in Czechoslovakia. This piece was sourced … Read more This is an original and rare stadium bench designed and produced in the 1970’s in Czechoslovakia. This piece was sourced directly from the sports hall in Brno where a few benches had to be removed due to the ongoing refurbishment of the building.

The Vodova Sport hall was built between 1969 - 1975 and has an interesting history. The architect Mojmir Korvas (1923-2003) was unjustly imprisoned for allegedly betrayal of the country in an elaborate trial run by the Communists Party. Korvas spent many years imprisoned before he could return to Brno. After returning, Korvas was only allowed to get a manual labouring job in Královopolska Engineering Works but later due to his talent and hard work, Korvas worked his way up to be a company architect.

He was allowed to design the Vodova Sport hall but later had to ask his younger colleague Jan Kruml to overlook and develop the project as it wasn’t acceptable to the Communist party to have Korvas listed as the architect. It is ironic that Kruml too was later fired for his anti-communist beliefs.

The sport hall had some advanced technical solutions as well as some great art works, for example the large mosaic by Janus Kubicek.

The bench is made of solid metal frame painted in cream colour with beech seats and backrests stain in dark brown. The seats no. 1 and no. 2 can be easily adjusted from horizontal to vertical position. There are some cut out semicircles on the wooden parts of the backrest that softens the overall robust design of the bench and adds a more expressive form to the whole piece.

The bench can stand on its own or alternatively can be screwed to the floor.

This piece is in good vintage condition with some wear and patina gained from its use over the years. Instead of restoring the existing wooden surface or repainting the metal frame, we wanted to keep the unique character and celebrate the great patina acquired over the years.

We have one more bench, seats No. 9 and No. 10 in our stock which we sale separately. See less