Jiří and Jaromír Čerych’s Tenement House

The south-eastern tower house closing the entrance to Ulrichovo náměstí Square from

the side of the historical center of the town was built In 1934. The builders were Jiří Čerych,

a textile industrialist from Česká Skalice and husband of Marie Bartoňová (daughter of Cyril Bartoň of Dobenín) and his brother Jaromír Čerych, a textile industrialist in Josefov-Jaroměř. The construction took place from 30 April 1934 to 1 July 1935.

 

Gočár’s plans have survived in two versions: the first is dated 20 February 1934, the second and final one is dated 15 April 1934. It was a five-story, basement house with an attic extension. The façade was designed by Gočár according to his original plan: large three-part windows were framed in distinctive chambranles and the raised ground floor was filled with glass shop fronts of four shops. The main entrance to the house was from Ulrichovo náměstí Square, where there was also a passage to the courtyard. The courtyard was very cramped, with a single garage. In connection with the older buildings in the square, the house had

a gable roof; the corners, except for the roof extension, had a gently sloping pitched roof. 

 

The basement contained four shop cellars, a large tenants’ cellar facing the square, which was divided into eleven cellars, an adjoining smaller space facing the courtyard with four cellars, and a more articulated interior space with six more tenants’ cellars. In addition there was a central heating boiler room. The ground floor contained four shops. In the first version, the three shops were to be connected by storage rooms, and each shop was to be equipped with a washroom and toilet. In the final version, the storerooms were reduced in size and are referred to simply as “anterooms,” as each store also had access to the internal corridor of

the house. A small apartment was added, presumably for the caretaker, containing a room, kitchen, and toilet and bathroom. The windows faced the courtyard. The entire house was equipped with a passenger elevator leading from the basement to the attic addition. The first floor, referred to in the plans as the mezzanine, contained generously proportioned and well-lit apartments. All apartments were equipped with a living hall, pantry, bathroom, and toilet.

One apartment had only one room and a kitchen, two had two rooms with a kitchen, and one had three rooms and a kitchen. Two apartments had kitchens facing the courtyard,

and the two kitchens facing the frontage were always smaller than the living rooms. Gočár seems to have abandoned the idea of a residential, multi-purpose kitchen. The three larger apartments (two- and three-roomed) also had a small maid’s room – one was completely windowless; two had windows to the skylight. The house was not of skeleton construction;

the load-bearing walls were always between the apartments, and were thicker and double, which prevented the spread of noise. All floors referred to as the first to the third (actually

the second to the fourth if you include the mezzanine) had the same layout. The floor referred to as the fourth (actually the fifth) had one less room in the three-room apartment because it was under a roof that was connected to the adjacent tented roof development. In this room,

a large dormer window had been broken through. The last residential floor (the fifth in

the plans, but actually the sixth) was smaller. There was a two-room apartment with a kitchen facing today’s Gočárova Street, a one-room apartment with a kitchen adjoining it, a three-room apartment with a kitchen at the corner, and a studio apartment referred to as a “living kitchen facing Ulrichovo náměstí Square and Jeronýmova Street. Only the two largest apartments had a room for a maid. The attic extension contained two laundries, a drying room, and a roof terrace measuring 7.1 x 5.4 meters.

 

The Čerych brothers themselves most likely did not plan to live permanently in the house, as there are no atypical large apartments corresponding to the living standards of wealthy factory workers, as was the case in other tenement houses in the city. The Čerych brothers’ tenement house is the only residential building on Ulrichovo náměstí Square completely designed by Gočár’s office, including the internal layout; at the same time, it was the last high-rise building forming the entrance “gates” to the large, administrative square. 

 

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