YMCA

The YMCA (Youth Men’s Christian Association) was founded in the United States in 1844 as

a network of sports facilities and hostels. The idea of a network of educational, sports and accommodation institutions that cultivate the spirit and body of the young generation was spread in Czechoslovakia after the establishment of Czechoslovakia thanks to T. G. Masaryk, his daughter Alice and the builder Václav Maria Havel. It was officially founded at

the constituent congress on 21 April 1921, although some local organizations had been operating since 1919. The first YMCA building to be built was the one in Bratislava, designed by architects Jiří Grossmann and Alois Balán, followed by plans the headquarters in Na Poříčí Street in Prague, designed by architect Eduard Hnilička and built between 1925 and 1928.

In the territory of the present-day Czech Republic, the YMCA palace in České Budějovice was one of the first to be built. It was completed in 1920 but destroyed by fire in 1923. The building in Hradec Králové is one of the first completed and preserved YMCA residences in

the territory of today’s Czech Republic.

 

The plans have survived in two versions – the first and the final one. The first version of

the floor plans is dated November 1923; the final version is undated and was probably created sometime in the following months. The building permit is dated November 14, 1923. Construction began immediately and lasted until April 30, 1925.

 

The main tract facing today’s Gočárova Street contained a dining room and kitchen in

the basement, a reading room with a library on the ground floor, and single and double rooms with a common washroom on the first, second and third floors (in the final plan, the two planned single rooms were merged into one double room). The adjacent wing facing Šafaříkova Street contained workshops in the basement, common washrooms (in the first version of the plan they were to be baths, in the final plan only showers) and a boiler room with a coal room; on the ground floor there were study rooms, an office, toilets and a stairwell, and on the first floor there were two large common dormitories, toilets and two smaller double rooms (one with a balcony was converted in the final plan into a “meeting room” for the YMCA management), on the second floor six double rooms and toilets, on the third floor four staff rooms and one two-room apartment for the secretary of the institution with a kitchen and bathroom. There was also a laundry room on each floor. According to the description of

the finished building, the loft was used as follows: there was “a room with two side storerooms, the other space being reserved for hanging laundry”. The rooms were of three sizes: 8.3 to 8.7m2, 13 to 18m2 and 28 to 30m2.

 

After ten years of use, the YMCA applied for exemption from direct taxes because “79.27%

of the area of our building in Hradec Kralove is devoted to educational work and the boarding of indigent students, government and private junior employees.” The application further stated the price ratios in force in 1935: the YMCA in Hradec Králové accommodated “60 young men and students, where housing and food are priced at CZK 369 to 494 per month. The residents are not bound to meals at the YMCA, but most of them eat there because it is cheap.

The room rates of CZK 120–160 and include light, heating, cleaning, shower baths and bed linen. Lunch and dinner are already CZK 3.50, breakfast CZK 1.” Just for your information,

the average wages in 1929 were as follows: workers earned CZK 510 to 590 per month, clerks CZK 1,360 per month; prices of common consumer goods in 1928: 1kg of bread cost CZK 3,40, 1kg of pork CZK 16,90, a men’s shirt CZK 24,90, shoes CZK 100 crowns, Baťa shoes CZK 99.

 

In 1934, the YMCA served 300 lunches a day, and in addition to services in its own building,

it had a playground in the north of the city and summer camp complexes in the Orlické Mountains and the Giant Mountains.

 

The YMCA building designed by Václav Rejchl Jr. is one of the architect’s best achievements. He chose a combination of exposed masonry and plastered surfaces. He conceived

the façade in a sculptural manner with many cornices and decorative fields using the contrast of brick and plaster. The building has a distinctive plinth; the ground and first floors are divided by a double cornice along the entire length of the developed façade, which transitions into

a balcony railing above the entrance. The individual window axes between the first and second floors are only separated by rectangular bays. The triple window on the corner facing Šafaříkova Street is highlighted by a stepped lesene. The building has a distinctive crown cornice with regularly spaced regulations. The tented roof over the main wing facing today’s Gočárova Street is capped by a remarkable lantern with a neon sign reading “YMCA”. The name of the institution and its logo (a red equilateral triangle set on a point with a blue inscriptional stripe) also appear in the stained glass window above the main entrance. 

The architect Václav Rejchl Jr. was a significant supporter of the YMCA; not only did he design the building pro bono, but he also contributed 30,000 crowns to its realization, the cost of which amounted to 810,000 crowns. Rejchl’s younger brother, Jan Rejchl, also participated in the construction of the YMCA in the summer of 1924, as evidenced by family photographs – he was studying architecture at the Czech Technical University in Prague at the time. Josef Bartoň from Dobenín was also an important contributor in the 1930s; the main hall on

the ground floor was named after him as Bartoň Hall. According to contemporary documentation from 1938, it “serves as a reading room for boys, and in the evening for discussions and lectures, for boys and adults." 

 

The building was used for cultural and educational purposes after nationalization in 1950, and in 1975 partial alterations were made and the furnishings restored, but the building survives almost in its original state.

 

LZL