Opposite the railway station in Český Těšín, rises the monumental building of the former Hotel Polonia, known today as Hotel Piast, a structure whose history mirrors the story of Polish presence, pride and defeat in the Czech part of Cieszyn Silesia.

History

Its story begins with practicality, representation and national ambition. The Polish community on the left bank of the River Olza wanted a modern house of its own: a visible, dignified and financially self-sustaining symbol of identity. In 1930, the Polish Savings and Loan Association in Český Těšín decided to build a Polish Representative House. The commission went to Edward (Eduard) David, an architect closely connected to the region and known for his designs of public and ecclesiastical buildings in Český Těšín.

David designed a building recognisable today by its rhythmic fluted pilasters tied together with balconies, a vertical order that lends the façade gravitas and a metropolitan scale. The construction, financed through community donations and loans, had a pragmatic purpose: revenues from the hotel, restaurant and café located in the same building were intended to sustain Polish cultural infrastructure.

Construction began in April 1931, and the ceremonial opening took place at the end of the year; sources mention both 19 and 29 December. The hotel section was named Polonia and managed by a man named Tomanek; it opened in September 1932. Between the grand façade and the functional plan, David maintained architectural discipline. Polish associations and institutions occupied rooms adjacent to the café and restaurant, while a large hall with a balcony allowed for meetings, lectures, concerts and theatrical performances.

Located “right in front of the station”, the building became the first visible sign of Polish presence for visitors arriving by train.

The war interrupted this rhythm and changed the names. During the German occupation, Polonia became Germania. After liberation, the building returned to public life under a new name: Slavia, a choice that was anything but accidental. The name appeared “neutral”, signalling belonging to a broad Slavic community. In a borderland where the memory of Polish Polonia clashed with wartime trauma and new administration, Slavia helped to defuse identity tensions. It was to be neither Polish nor German: it was Slavic.

From the outset, David’s Representative House functioned as a social machine: architecture designed to “work” for the maintenance of Polish institutions while producing a culture of community. The name Slavia did not erase this origin; it rather inscribed the building into the post-war vocabulary of compromise. When, in the mid-1940s, the Slavia hall became home to the Cieszyn Silesian Theatre, the building once again turned into a space that transcended divisions: a stage of civic life where languages, repertoires and audiences mingled like lights behind the curtain. The attic could bear different alphabets, but the order of pilasters remained unchanged, and it was that rhythm, more than any name, that guaranteed the continuity of place.

Architecture

If one sets aside the building’s complex ownership history and looks purely at its form, Hotel Piast is a model example of Central European monumental modernism at the turn of the 1920s and 1930s: a functionalism softened by classical order. The core is modern (a column-and-slab structure, large spans in the hall, an open ground floor for services), yet the façade speaks the language of “slimmed-down” classicism.

Its strongest motif is the series of vertical fluted pilasters of giant order, bound by a continuous balcony-cornice at first-floor level and topped by a massive crown with an attic that today carries the large letters HOTEL PIAST. This arrangement performs three tasks at once: it organises the long façade, lends it a ceremonial rhythm and – crucial for the corner location – guides the eye towards the turning point of the mass, where the attic and a slight elevation mark the corner like a pavilion.

The ground floor differs deliberately: heavier, clad in stone, with larger openings and, historically, a row of awnings and neon signs. It forms an urban “sockel” carrying the movement of the street: entrances to the restaurant, café, hall and retail spaces. The zone between ground floor and pilasters acts as a buffer: shallow balconies and cornices create a “shelf” for urban life, domesticating the monumentality of the upper storeys. Windows form vertical strips between pilasters: restrained, rectangular, without ornate framing. The composition is symmetrical but not rigid; there is no triumphal axial portico, only an even, civic pulse of verticals.

This idiom reflects a broader regional pattern. In late-1920s Czechoslovakia, alongside pure functionalism, there developed a purified classicism used in banks and union houses: an architecture of institutions and prestige, technically modern yet symbolically dignified. Hotel Piast belongs to this family. It monumentalises the façade through vertical order while concealing modernity in structure and plan (mixed functions, a large hall, a flexible ground floor).

Two logics intersect here: the panoramic, elongated side (the rhythm of pilasters) and the corner emphasis (accented attic and superstructure). This is urban thinking: the building was designed to be viewed in motion, from the train platform, from the pedestrian crossing or from a passing car.

Details are restrained and shallow: pilaster flutings, simplified capitals, plain balcony railings. There is no decorative expressionism or cubist angularity, only discipline and rhythm. The ground floor, however, evolved: successive renovations added awnings, shop windows and suspended ceilings. Recent restorations – after the greenish and later yellow phases of the façade – restored a neutral colour scheme, allowing the tectonics to re-emerge: the contrast of light plaster, stone base and shadowed pilasters.

The Representative House typology presupposed intersecting functions: offices and association rooms, hotel and circulation cores, catering facilities and a large hall with a relatively small stage. This required a sign of its time: a reinforced-concrete grid with wider spans on public levels and denser modules in the hotel sections. Architecture was to operate economically (hotel and gastronomy sustaining culture and associations) and symbolically (manifesting presence through a “serious” façade and grand scale).

Historical references are plural rather than singular: Central European association houses, banks and hotels from 1925–1935 built on vertical order and strong cornices. Formally, Hotel Piast is close to Czech examples of academic functionalism (monumental rhythms, simplified orders) and to Polish interwar administrative buildings. Its distinction lies in the scale of pilasters, almost of a “giant order”, as in bank architecture, combined with a softened corner and a clearly legible attic that naturally accommodates signage. Through that attic, more than through details, the building “spoke” to the city throughout the twentieth century: the letters changed (Polonia / Germania / Slavia / Piast), but the musical score of the façade remained the same.

After World War Two

In 1945, the hotel was nationalised after being taken from its German owners and renamed Slavia. In 1947, the emerging Polish Cultural and Educational Union (PZKO) was promised the return of Hotel Slavia (Piast) as of 1 January 1948; the official transfer occurred on 11 January 1948, preceded by celebratory events on 2 January. The name was then changed to Piast. PZKO initially acted as administrator, and it acquired full ownership in December 1949 by purchasing the property for nine million crowns. For the Polish minority, this was an act of agency and a declaration of continuity with the interwar model.

This order collapsed at the turn of 1959–1960. In early 1960, the newspaper “Głos Ludu” published a brief notice announcing that the state enterprise Restaurants and Canteens (Restaurace a jídelny) had taken over the management of Hotel and Café Piast. By March 1965, the company formally purchased the hotel for over 1,100,000 crowns. Polish newspapers such as “Głos Ludu” and “Zwrot” reported on the case, explaining the sale by a lack of funds for maintenance. However, the “PZKO Chronicle" for 1965 remained silent.

Despite ownership changes, Hotel Piast continued to serve Polish organisations and hosted numerous events. Its restaurant was regarded as elegant. In March 1968, the building hosted a Czechoslovak-Polish historical symposium.

On 21 December 1989, the hotel’s halls witnessed a symbolic meeting between Polish MPs and representatives of the Czech Občanské fórum: Petr Pithart, Jaroslav Šabata and Martin Palouš on the Czech side, Adam Michnik and Zbigniew Bujak on the Polish side. The resulting statement declared a desire to “extinguish mutual conflicts” and proposed a joint scholarly commission to identify “white spots” in mutual relations: a minimal programme for turning disputes into dialogue. Yet the tone soon hardened: the press carried voices claiming that Poles in the region were still “being struck over the head”, facing denationalisation. Soon after, a group of young Poles vandalised the Piast interior and defaced its façade with anti-Czech graffiti. Later, following the Congress of Poles, the press noted that “even the restaurant menu was only in Czech”. Such episodes did not determine ownership but revealed much about symbols and expectations.

The History of Piast after 1990

Efforts to regain the building began in 1990. In 1991, the property was returned to PZKO, supported by the Polish diaspora organisation Wspólnota Polska and the personal involvement of Professor Andrzej Stelmachowski. Financial assistance came in the form of a non-repayable loan from the Polish authorities, enabling the purchase. The Council of Poles – then at odds with PZKO – was also involved.

The Czech authorities agreed to sell the hotel for USD 277,000. The statement “PZKO remains the owner of Piast” acquired a foundational meaning. Initially, there were plans to establish a Polonia–Piast joint-stock company, with ten Polish organisations as shareholders. When registration failed, the economic entity Polonia Piast was created to manage the hotel.

In early 1993, Polonia Piast was transformed into Piast Comp Ltd., with PZKO as one of its two shareholders. Yet the company’s financial situation was precarious: by the end of 1993, it had recorded a loss exceeding 1.5 million crowns. Nevertheless, the hotel remained a social hub, hosting conventions, festivals and balls.

In 1995, finances improved slightly and the management considered transforming the company into a joint-stock entity. However, in the spring it was decided to liquidate Piast Comp, transfer the second share to the Polish Educational Society and select a new economic operator through competition. The hotel hovered on the edge of profitability, burdened by past debts.

Management was ultimately entrusted to the Dom Polski joint-stock company, which also operated the Polish House in Ostrava. Initially, the change was welcomed, but the company was already heavily indebted.

In November 1996, the manager – approved by the PZKO president – took out a short-term loan of about 11 million Czech crowns (≈ USD 350,000), using the hotel as collateral. The money was supposedly intended for a profitable commercial venture that would later fund the building’s renovation. In reality, the funds were diverted and the loan remained unpaid.

As a result, in July 1997, the press announced that Těšínská Leasingová společnost (TLS) had become the new owner of Hotel Piast. The loan, secured on the property and granted by TLS owner Stanisław Gleta, led to the creditor’s takeover. Headlines read:

“A national monument sold for seven million crowns”,
while official statements soberly noted:
“Hotel Piast is owned by TLS.”

The case went to court. The Karviná court initially declared the 1996 agreement invalid, but the Ostrava court overturned the ruling, confirming TLS ownership.

The aftermath included the loss of the Polish House in Ostrava, reportedly offered to the creditor in exchange for Piast’s return; an exchange that never took place. TLS was later liquidated, and in 2016 the hotel was purchased by Eshref Merdjani, an entrepreneur of Albanian origin based in Český Těšín, who planned to restore its former splendour. In 2024, the building was again put up for sale; its façade was refurbished and given a more subdued colour scheme.

Theatre in Hotel Piast

At the heart of Polonia was its multifunctional hall. About twenty metres long and equipped with a balcony and a relatively small stage without an orchestra pit, it was designed to accommodate meetings, lectures, concerts and theatre. This “event machine” quickly became the cultural heart of Polish Český Těšín: hosting literary evenings, choir concerts, guest performances and social balls. Its proximity to the station made travel and logistics easy.

The war broke this rhythm. After 1939, the building passed under various administrations and names; and after 1945, as Slavia, it shed its explicitly Polish identity. Yet paradoxically, it was precisely then, in the immediate post-war years, that the hall lived most fully as a theatre.

In autumn 1945, a professional stage was initiated in Český Těšín; on 8 February 1946, the Cieszyn Silesian Theatre was officially established, with Slavia as its home. The director, renowned Ostrava actor Antonín Brož, organised an independent ensemble.

Although the hall lacked an orchestra pit, had modest stage machinery and limited backstage space, its proportions suited genres that thrive on intimacy: operetta and realistic drama. Attendance was impressive and spatial limitations fostered ingenuity: depth was created by light and movement rather than mass. The theatre worked like clockwork: performances in the evenings, rehearsals by day, administration and workshops in nearby buildings, set production in Tovární Street. The whole station area effectively turned into a dispersed theatrical organism.

In 1951, the institution adopted a bilingual structure, whose hallmark remains the Polish Stage. This defined a new horizon: the theatre now served both Polish and Czech audiences, developing Polish, Czech and Soviet repertoires. In its first decade, it premiered 57 productions and gave over 2,000 performances, both locally and on tour.

In Slavia, this meant not only a dense schedule but also a wealth of craftsmanship. The same technical team handled two programmes; the same interior “switched” aesthetics several times a week; and the balcony-shaped auditorium nurtured a focused, almost chamber-like relationship with the actor.

The 1950s were a time of institutional consolidation. Directors and artistic leaders changed and repertoire ambitions grew, but the measure of maturity remained the daily discipline of performing “out of a suitcase”, where every centimetre of backstage space and every scenery trolley mattered. For theatre history, this decade is invaluable: it forged the ensemble’s identity and the craft that was later transferred to the new building. For the city’s history, it marked Piast as a civic cultural centre uniting professional theatre and social life.

In 1961, the theatre finally received its own building on Ostravská Street, closing a twenty-year chapter of creative improvisation and pragmatic stage engineering. Yet that period was more than a “transition”. It embodied the very idea Edward David had built into his architecture: a hall measured not only in metres but in relationships between institution and audience, minority and majority, tradition and modernity. The fact that this interior could sustain a professional theatre after the war attests to the precision of its original programme and the flexibility of its form.