Václav Rejchl st.

Václav Rejchl is an example of a mason who became a successful builder and architect – an autodidact – thanks to his own diligence, hard work and talent. He was apprenticed by master bricklayer Antonín Černý in Černilov and then he worked in a number of cities – Prague–Karlín, Roudnice nad Labem and Rychnov – while attending the crafts school in Třebechovice. Since 1884, he worked as a master mason for architect František Červenka in Hradec Králové, for example on the tenement houses no. 82 and 83 (V Kopečku Street). At that time, he also received a master bricklayer license, but he kept working for František Červenka. Later, he worked with architect Viktor Weinhengst on the construction of the Hradec Králové theatre and then again for architect Červenka on the construction of Prince Lobkowitz’s sugar refinery in Rožďalovice. In 1894, he designed and built two exhibition pavilions for the Economic, Industrial and Ethnographic Exhibition. Subsequently, Rejchl founded a building company together with Tomáš Suhrada which built seven to eight major buildings by 1900. In 1897 (according to his son’s recollections [1]), Suhrada had an unspecified disagreement with Mayor Ulrich and left for to Prague while Václav Rejchl stayed in Hradec Králové and built several tenement houses (e.g. at 151 and 152 Velké náměstí Square). Problems arose during the construction of the tenement houses at 287 and 290 Mostecká Street and in today’s ČSA Avenue – the plots of land had unstable subsoil and Rejchl lost his money on the project. During the 1910s, Václav Rejchl became one of the most sought after builders and architects of tenement houses and villas in Hradec Králové. Around 1910, he built a number of family houses (in the Morušovka colony on Orlické Embankment, in Střelecká Street and in Nový Hradec Králové) and tenement houses (e.g. in Švendova Street). At that time, Václav Rejchl was also a member of many important public commissions and associations, for example, the Committee for the Construction of the Hučák Power Plant, and a member of the Board of Trustees of the city museum. Before World War I, his son Václav worked for him as a student. Between 1913 and 1915, they built the so-called Jan Hus House for the Lutheran Evangelical Church of the Augsburg Confession, which was to include a prayer room, a boys’ school and facilities. During the war, Václav Rejchl worked primarily on utilitarian projects. Between 1915 and 1916, he and his son designed small train station buildings in Slezské Předměstí (Silesian Suburbs; the station building and a secondary warehouse), Kukleny (the station building), and Lhota pod Libčany (a warehouse building). Other buildings include the school buildings in Librantice of 1910, built in a very simple eclectic style. In the so-called Jan Hus house and in the school in Librantice, Rejchl worked with an original synthesis of modern classicism. In 1919, he joined the East Bohemian Association of Builders together with his son; however, they soon left due to alleged corruption issues and Václav Rejchl retired. 

LZL

Notes

[1] Vzpomínky V. Rejchla, family archive of Helena Judlová, unpaginated.