Tombstone and monument as the role of a modern architect: Sepulchralia in the work of Ladislav Machon from 1915-1949

The architect Ladislav Machon (1888-1973) became famous in the 1920s and 1930s mainly as a monument architect and as a long-term employee and subsequently colleague of Jan Kotera. He first approached Cubist shapes and forms in the designs of sepulchral works. The designs of the tomb of Augustin Krivanek in Jevicko from 1915 show experiments with polygonal and crystal-like forms, but he had used Cubist shapes already in the competition design for Zizka's Monument on Vitkov from 1913, created along with Jaroslav Horejc. He then reached his peak in the tomb of Cyril Pecival from 1915. After the war, Machon abandoned formalism and composed the memorial site according to the architectural and stag design rules of material configuration. In a number of commissions, also classical proportions and elements were used. The most significant commissions may have been at the turn of the 1920s and 1930s (they include the small tomb of the family of the Perners and Machons, where he himself is buried) and from the time of World War II, when Machon offered clients a tomb or small tomb for which he resolved commissions of another character; which was the case of the tomb of the family of the Rudolfs or Chramosts. The most complicated designs included also such, which had the most representative character and were on an exposed location for the mayor Vladimir Mazura in Zamberk or for the top politician Vladimir Facek at Vysehrad. He also designed for Jewish clientele, which overlapped also with the clientele from the Free Mason circles (e.g. the persona of the painter Alfred Justitz). Machon, designed the last private tombs at the end of the 1950s. He also designed urn steles (01 any Cemetery, Vinohrady Cemetery) as well as urns themselves (classicizing designs from 1919). He proposed the architectural resolution of the funerals of important people - the politician Kamil Krofta or the writer Alois Jirasek.