Hubert Gessner

Hubert Gessner, a native of Valašské Klobouky, studied a secondary technical school in Brno between 1885 and 1889, where Adolf Loos was his classmate. After training in Opava and Moravian Ostrava in 1894–1898, he studied at the architectural studio of Otto Wagner at the Vienna Academy of Fine Arts, where Josef Hoffmann, Jan Kotěra and Jože Plečnik were his classmates. After graduating, he worked at Wagner’s studio; between 1899 and 1918, for the Brno regional building authority. In 1904–1912, he worked for an architectural studio in Vienna together with his brother, architect Franz Gessner. Between 1896 and 1905, he designed a number of buildings in Bohemia and Moravia. His first project was Bratman’s villa no. 116 in Valašské Klobouky, where he later returned to design the so-called Horn’s house no. 189. In Brno, Gessner designed the District Sickness Fund building in Brno–Zábrdovice (1903–1904), the city spa and a sanatorium (both 1905). In Silesia, he also designed hotel buildings: the Slezský dvůr Hotel in Opava (1903) and the Jindřichův dvůr Hotel in Nový Jičín (1906). Around 1900, he worked with his former classmate from the Vienna Academy, architect Otokar Bém, who lived and worked in Ostrava at that time. Together, they designed the building of the Business Academy in Hradec Králové and Horn’s house.  

Before World War I, Gessner worked on projects for the Social Democratic Party: the headquarters (and the workers’ house and the Vorwärts publishing and printing house in Vienna, and the office of the Arbeiterwille in Gray (both in 1910–1912). In addition, he designed the workers’ consumer cooperative in Wolfganggasse (1908–1909) and Neudorferstraße (1914). Before the war, Gessner also worked on the construction of a series of tenement and cooperative residential houses, for eaxmple the Liesing residential colony between 1911 and 1912 and the Fünfhaus residential complex (today Leopold Müller Hof) in 1912–1913.

His social democratic orientation and experience in the construction of complex objects for collective housing allowed Gessner to become one of the leading architects of the development of Vienna, where social democratic town councillors tried to build affordable housing by building brand new, rationally designed quarters. The phenomenon of the development of public housing under the baton of Oscar Neurath’s sociological research later became famous as “Red Vienna”.  Gessner became the chief architect of Reumann-Hof quarter built between 1924 and 1926 and Karl-Seitz-Hof quarter built in 1926–1927. He also worked on other similar construction projects: Metzleinstalerhof, Lassalle-Hof, Heizmann-Hof, and Robert Zangerl Hof. 

Hubert Gessner was also interested in industrial architecture. His approach was based on his studies under Otto Wagner: industrial architecture should not look like other noble buildings, but rather show its purpose; on the other hand, it should not give up on the human scale and art forms. In the Czech lands, Gessner designed the mill and bakery for Odkolek company in 1912 (modified and extended in 1917–1918) and the residential building for the employees Odkolek’s mills no. 300 in Prague–Vysočany in 1920–1921. Between 1910 and 1911, Gessner designed the Liberec Workers’ Bakery. Between 1905 and 1943, he designed more than a dozen industrial buildings in Vienna, Linz, Leoben, and Innsbruck. 

LZL