1936: Dresden

“Josef Jindřich Šechtla and Leica camera ” — Ninth exhibition of Šechtl & Voseček Museum of Photography.

Josef Jindřich Šechtl together with his family and sculptor Dušek visited pre-WWII Dresden during his trip to Olympic Games in Berlin.

1. The Zwinger Palace in Dresden. The location was formerly part of the Dresden fortress of which only the outer wall still exists. The building was mostly destroyed by the carpet bombing raids of 1945. After the war, in a referendum, the people of Dresden voted to restore the building and generally preferred to rebuild the glories of the city, instead of having the ruins bulldozed to make way for the architecture of socialist realism then prevalent in the German Democratic Republic.
2. The Zwinger Palace is famous for its collection of fine art that was fortunately evacuated before the building was destroyed. In pre WWII Germany, priority was apparently given to the exhibition of medieval age armor and weaponry.
3. The first rounded house in the world, Kugelhaus in Dresden, 24 metres in diameter, was built in 1928 and existed for 10 years. The Architect Peter Birkenholz wanted to express his idea of a rounded world.
4. Josef Šechtl, son of the photographer, poses next to a miniature train.