Czech Cubism, a movement that arose around 1911, attempted to create a new aesthetic for architecture and design based in part on the tenets of French Cubist painting. German Expressionism, especially the work of artists in the group Die Brücke (The Bridge), was also influential. Janák co-founded the avant-garde cooperative Artel, in Prague, for whom he created this coffeepot with its faceted form and bold zigzag patterning, emphasizing Cubist reduction and fragmentation of forms into abstract, often geometric structures.

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