Josef Kieslich’s Tenement House

The building approval commission was held on 31 May 1911; however, the building did not pass as suitable for use and had to be finished before it was approved on 8 August of the same year. Previously, on March 20, Kieslich had applied for approval of the portal and shop window of the new store, which was provided, but its execution dragged on. The glass shop window, two stores, and Art Nouveau decor in frames was designed Josef Nevyhoštěný, a prominent carpenter and furniture maker.
 

Kieslich applied for the building permit shortly after the summer of 1910, but the contractor deviated from the approved plans, so Kieslich had to apply for the permit again on October 27, 1910. There was also a problem with the design aesthetics. Kieslich’s three-storey house was to be adjacent to two-storey buildings. One of the neighboring houses had a high Renaissance gable, while the other had a continuous cornice. The building authority requested that the façade of Kieslich’s house be connected to this cornice. Therefore, the contractor František Jaroslav Černý divided the exterior of the tall house into three parts: the ground floor, which was entirely occupied by a shop window, the first and second floors divided by vertical bands and decorative friezes with geometric frieze motifs (ovals and triangles) in the window axes, and the third floor, which had to be separated by a cornice as requested. This last section is framed by strips of unplastered brick and is articulated by the vertical texture of the strips that flow freely into the crown cornice.
 

In the basement, there is a laundry room and three cellars; on the ground floor, there are also two stores with two attached storerooms; and on each of the three floors, there is a one-bedroom apartment with a kitchen, pantry, and toilet and a two-bedroom apartment with a kitchen, bathroom, and pantry.
 

The unusually tall, three-storey building in the former Jiříkova Street, which was to turn into a big city boulevard, shows the ambition of the local contractors to match European cities in both decoration (vertical subdivision, while the horizontal division by cornice had to be ordered by the building authority) and height and comfort of living and shopping.
 

LZL