Vanguard Loft Balances Industrial and Modernist Aesthetics

Skull Studio designed the Vanguard loft in Prague, Czech Republic, by balancing industrial and modernist aesthetics with references to motorsport icons.

The interior pays homage to Czech racer Eliška Junková, once Bugatti’s ambassador in Ceylon, as well as the early 20th-century First Republic architecture of newly independent Czechoslovakia.

“The concept of ‘co-creation’ is central to understanding the allocation of spatial functions,” studio co-founder Lucie Malá Krausová said.

She and her partner designed the loft with the Globetrotter character in mind, drawing on the theme of time and time-travel.

“We wanted to create a relaxed everyday environment, balancing delicate matters of functionality, comfort and leisure, infused with the increasingly topical concern with time,” Krausová continued.

“The selected combination of colours, materials and distinctive designs is half wonderfully nostalgic, half invigoratingly progressive.”

The rectangular 258-square-metre loft is organised along a central axis – dividing the main space into cooking, eating and seating zones.

A pink coffee books display and a geometric bookcase define the lounge. Here, formalities are left behind surrounded by a mixture of vintage furniture like Jean Michel Frank’s chairs and Eero Saarinen’s Womb-type armchairs with green mohair velvet covers.

A massive window framed in stainless steel steps onto the terrace, fitted with outdoor furniture for summer relaxation and a set of abstract neon tubes that imitate the speed motion blur.

Throughout the loft, each zone is distinguished by a set of different qualities. The built-in kitchen with a bar island is made of stainless steel and laminated in coloured veneer resisting humidity and shrinking.

The pantry is a refurbished former phone elevator, elected to symbolize “a firmly set modernist ideal of the First Republic era”. The ceramic tiles here belonged to a now defunct Prague hotel and were overlaid with glossy red tiles for the new fit-out.

A “tough” central column wrapped in rubber and perforated metal supports the ceiling, fitted with linear LED lights throughout.

The dining zone includes a naturalistic conference table made of stone, around which the workspace revolves. A retractable screen drops from the ceiling to enclose the space, which expands visually through the lounge, to the terrace and the private parking area beyond it.

Discovery, too, was a key theme behind the project, suggested in the change of atmosphere when moving to the more private area.

Here, Skull Studio played with openness and separation to provide flexible yet unrestricted zones – achieved with movable walls and curtains.

The studio, for instance, separated the guest area and office garden from the lounge with a metal lattice that acts as a terrarium of cacti and other succulents. The full-height cabinetry in blue lacquered MDF doubles as a kitchenette.

In the main bedroom, an orange headboard is placed at an angle. Both the bedroom and the lounge are equipped with an enamel bathtub to suit the arrangement.

“Our hero, The Globetrotter, is an unabashed connoisseur of comfort,” said Krausová.

The spirit of Junková imbues the entire loft’s design, colourful lines and shapes referring to the pioneering era of racing with Bugatti Hispano-Suiza Maserati.

The furniture comes in wave-like shapes juxtaposed to an overall rectangular layout. A mixture of the duo’s finds during their “globetrotter” encounters were supplemented by fixed elements made to measure *in situ*.

“This bricolage feel balanced with the functionalism spirit reminds me of the images that stream in my head while driving across the Swiss slopes,” shared Krausová.

“Distances between safety zones running through the tunnels and galleries sharpen the discipline of the driver who alternatively immerses into the borderless viridity of the Alpine countryside and the reinforced-concrete linearity.”

While industrial materials like concrete, steel, glass and wood paint most of the interior, a terracotta painted stair introduces a contrasting colour.

Upcycled elements like a counter implemented into the wall opposite the kitchen and a canopy bed in the guest room complete the decor, appearing throughout the space in varied sizes.