Václav and Anna Potůček’s Tenement House

On 7 May 1910, Anna and Václav Potůček, owners of a jewellery and watchmaking business, applied for a building permit to convert the former one-storey building into a three-storey one. Václav Potůček applied for final approval on 31 December of the same year – and it was granted on 26 January of the following year.
 

The project was designed by local architect Jaroslav Pažout, known for his work on a number of villas and tenement houses buildings in the eclectic, Art Nouveau, and traditionalist styles. He conceived Potůček’s commission as a large tenement house with Art Nouveau decoration on the façade and he also met the conditions of the building permit: “the gable walls, if they extend beyond the roofs of the neighboring houses, must be architecturally tasteful.” Although the side gables did not extend beyond the neighboring houses, the architect also designed a tall, segmental gable with a broken oval window facing the street. The vertically articulated façade is defined by a bay window extending from the first to the third floor, garlanded lesene frames articulating the window bays, and decorative elements in the form of oval and spiral flutings.

On the ground floor, along the main entrance, there were two shops with facilities (a workshop and a warehouse). On the first floor, there was a large apartment with three rooms facing the street, one room facing the courtyard on one side, and the kitchen with accessories, the maid’s room, the bathroom and the pantry on the other. There were apartments of the same generous layout on the second and third floors, each with two entrances. These were later divided into smaller ones.
 

Václav and Anna Potůček’s tenement house is a uniquely preserved monument of Art Nouveau architecture in Hradec Králové, and the vertical concept of its façade is an example of the urban ambitions of the city of the time. It is also an example of how Czech Art Nouveau, represented by Osvald Polívka, Antonín Balšánek, Bedřich Bendlmayer and others, inspired the Czech architectural landscape
.

LZL