Jan Letzel (April 9, 1880 – December 26, 1925) was a Czech architect. April 9 is the 99th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar (100th in leap years). ... Jump to: navigation, search 1880 was a leap year starting on Thursday (see link for calendar). ... Jump to: navigation, search December 26 is the 360th day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar, 361st in leap years. ... Jump to: navigation, search 1925 was a common year starting on Thursday (link will take you to calendar). ... Jump to: navigation, search Architect at his drawing board, 1893 An architect, also known as a building designer, is a person involved in the planning, designing and oversight of a buildings construction, whose role is to guide decisions affecting those building aspects that are of aesthetic, cultural or social...

Jan Letzel was born in the town of Náchod, Bohemia. The son of a hotel owner, he studied at Prague's School of Creative and Industrial Art under Jan Kotěra, the founder of modern architecture in Czechoslovakia. Letzel graduated in 1904, and in 1907, after a stint in Egypt, he came to Japan, finding work as a designer in Tokyo. Jump to: navigation, search Náchod is a town in the Czech Republic, in the Hradec Králové Region. ... Jump to: navigation, search Bohemia This article is about the historical region in central Europe; for other uses, see Bohemia (disambiguation). ... Jump to: navigation, search Prague (Czech: Praha, see also other names) is the capital and largest city of the Czech Republic. ... Jan KotÄ›ra (December 18, 1871 in Brno – April 17, 1923 in Prague) was a Czech architect, one of the key figures of modern architecture in Bohemia. ... Jump to: navigation, search Long a symbol of Tokyo, the Nijubashi Bridge at the Kokyo Imperial Palace. ...

During his ten years in Japan, Letzel created more than 15 residences and public buildings. Hiroshima's Prefectural Industrial Promotion Hall, a fusion of neo-Baroque and Art Deco, was completed in 1916. Hiroshima at that time was dominated by two-storey wooden buildings, and the Promotional Hall, with its bold European design and unique copper-plated dome, soon became one of Hiroshima's most striking landmarks (Hiroshima Peace Memorial) because the first atomic bomb flattened every building in the city centre except this one. Twenty years later it would become a landmark for the whole of humanity. Jump to: navigation, search Main keep of Hiroshima Castle The city of Hiroshima (広島市; -shi) is the capital of Hiroshima Prefecture, and the largest city in the Chugoku region of western Honshu, the largest of Japans islands. ... Adoration, by Peter Paul Rubens: dynamic figures spiral down around a void: draperies blow: a whirl of movement lit in a shaft of light, rendered in a free bravura handling of paint The Baroque was a style in art that used exaggerated motion and clear, easily interpreted detail to produce... Asheville City Hall. ... Citizens of the city pass by the Hiroshima Peace Memorial on their way to a memorial ceremony on August 6, 2004 Hiroshima Peace Memorial, called Genbaku Dome (原爆ドーム), the Atomic Bomb Dome, or the A-Bomb Dome by the Japanese is a UNESCO World Heritage Site located in Hiroshima, Japan. ...

Letzel himself never lived to see the transformation of his Industrial Promotion Hall into the A-Bomb Dome. The architect left Japan in 1923 in the wake of the Great Kantō earthquake, and returned home to Czechoslovakia. Suffering from ill health, he died at the age of 45. Jump to: navigation, search Great Kanto Earthquake The Great Kanto Earthquake (関東大震災 Kantō daishinsai) struck the Kanto plain on the Japanese main island of Honshu at 11:58 on the morning of September 1, 1923. ...

External links

• A look at the Czech architect who built Hiroshima's Industrial Promotion Hall — today's A-Bomb Dome
• 2000, Letzel Year