Viktor Weinhengst

Viktor Weinhengst had a varied architectural education – he studied at the Czech Technical University in Prague (1872–1875) and attended construction courses at the German Technical University. Afterwards, he studied at the Vienna Academy. From 1882, his creative career was linked to his hometown, where the building closure in the fortress district had been lifted since the late 1850s. Weinhengst’s major work in the inner city was the theatre, designed in 1884 and completed a year later. The neo–Renaissance building with classical elements is an impressive structure, but it did not break from the conventional style of its time. The tumultuous development of the city after the demolition of the fortress buildings began in 1894 was also a major factor in the increasing demand for Weinhengst’s services. Due to the fortifications surrounding the old town, there was a lack of the large-scale urban formations in the form of housing blocks that would have been developed over the previous 150 years or so. The challenging task of expanding the city was undertaken by a number of local old school architects who used the morphology of the historic styles and first contributed to the development of the Eliščino and Tylovo nábřeží Embankments. One of them was also Weinhengst, who defended his interests in the demolition of the city walls and the sale of land in the so-called Fortress Department. There he served not only as a builder, but also as a city councilor and member of the board of directors of the Kralobanka bank. In his work he used proven architectural forms until the end of his life at the turn of the century, when Hradec Králové was already opening up to the plans of modern-minded architects. On the left bank of the Elbe he built a distinctive landmark of the then emerging Jiříkova (today Československé armády) Street in the form of the original “old” Grand hotel (1897). In 1911, the new tenant and later owner of the hotel, Jaroslav Urban, had house no. 257 added to the hotel and rebuilt according to the modernist design by Jan Kotěra. In 1927, Weinhengst’s Neo-Rococo façade was unified with Kotěra’s design during the extension of the attic spaces by the builder Josef Fňouk. In addition to the hotel, a series of sprawling public buildings was also built on the very edges of the former fortress grounds – for example, the School for Artistic Locksmiths

(1892–1893), the Adalbertinum (1895–1897) and similar buildings on Pospíšilova Street. Weinhengst also left a distinctive mark in this ring when he placed the building of the boys’ church boarding school Nové Borromeum, now the Bishop’s Grammar School (1900–1902), on the embankment of the Orlice River.

 

Apparently, he also carried out a number of commissions as a builder. In 1896, for example, he was listed as supervisor of the construction of the Adalbertinum building, for which he himself drew up one of the unused designs. He also built his own house at 310 Eliščino nábřeží Embankment, designed by Rudolf Němec and Bedřich Bendelmayer,

in the Neo–Renaissance style with a façade richly decorated with sgraffiti. Weinhengst was also given the opportunity to rebuild the Municipal Brewery in Pilsen.