Rubber Factory J. Hakauf & Sons

The modern factory complex with administrative and residential buildings was designed by Jaroslav Hakauf’s son, architect Vratislav Hakauf, who was a student of Josip Plečnik, a prominent architect of Slovenian origin, and important Pavel Janák. The construction was then carried out by the architect’s brother, contractor Jaroslav Hakauf Jr. The project of the new factory consisted of four buildings: the factory hall with the administrative facilities of the company at No. 88, the porter’s lodge at No. 89, and the residential houses at No. 90 and 91, used to accommodate the factory employees. The factory was built in the fields near the street leading to Předměřice. The fact that it was a successful project is also confirmed by the opinion of art historian and art critic Karel Herain, who said that the building was one of the ‘first cases of a perfect solution’ for a factory building in Hradec Králové. 
 

The production hall with administrative premises was conceived as a two-storey brick building without a basement with a flat reinforced concrete roof with skylights. The façade is made in a combination of fair-face masonry and white plastered surfaces in the spirit of modernism. The project thus showed the significant influence of Janák on the author of Hakauf’s factory, in addition to elements of purism. A distinctive element of the building was the wooden arched structure of the so-called Štěpán’s roof above the ‘hose hall’ in the central part of the factory hall. Another distinctive element is the bay abundantly lit by six-part windows, in which the staircase, offices and toilets were located. On the ground floor, in addition to these rooms, there were storage rooms, a mixing room, a rolling mill, a honing machine, and a garage. In the southern wing of the first floor, as well as in the staircase bay, there were offices and toilets. The spatial arrangement of the first floor was dominated by the so-called hose hall. On the second floor, there was a staircase and rooms for the company archive and reservoir. The hall rooms were lit by a number of large factory windows with glass block panels. Between 1940 and 1941, a boiler room, a warehouse, washrooms, and a space for recycling waste materials were built. The construction was designed and carried out by contractor František Jaroslav Černý from Hradec Králové. 

The porter’s building was conceived in the same spirit as the factory and administrative premises of the rubber factory. It is a brick single-storey building with a flat roof. The façade was dominated by a wide central strip of bare brickwork surrounded by two whitewashed strips. The porter’s room was lit by four six-part windows, facing east towards the main access road to the factory courtyard, and several smaller windows. For the needs of the porter, there was a room, kitchen, pantry, toilet and hallway. However, the largest room of the building was a waiting room for visitors to the factory. In 1929, an extension of the garage, carpentry shop and shed was built. And in 1932, a garage for a truck was added to the porter’s room, designed by architect Vratislav Hakauf and built by František Jaroslav Černý. 
 

The adjoining residential houses Nos. 90 and 91, as well as the main factory and administrative building and the porter’s room, were made of bricks. The exterior façade was designed with a combination of bare brickwork and white plastered masonry. These were one-storey buildings with partial basements and flat roofs. The dominant feature of the pair of buildings was again the illuminated staircase bay on the eastern side of the building. Lighting was provided by a number of six-part windows. On the ground floor, there were two residential units, which consisted of an entrance hall, two rooms, a kitchen, a pantry, and shared toilets. On the first floor, a pair of residential units with the same layout was also designed. On the second floor, there was one apartment. In August 1941, modifications to the rooms at house No. 90 were designed, and in 1947, a project was drawn up by the technical office of the Chudomela and Stejskal company from Hradec Králové for the establishment of lodgings on the second floor of the buildings. The project envisaged levelling the roof of house No. 90 with a staircase bay. 
 

During the German occupation, the company Hakauf and Sons cooperated with the German administration, produced rubber products for the needs of the German army, then operating under the name Pendelastic. In 1948, the company was nationalized and renamed Gumokov. The production focused on rubberized rollers and transport belts. After WWII, there were a number of demolitions, extensions and modifications to the original factory buildings. Among other things, residential houses No. 90 and 91 were demolished. Later, the Hradec Králové factory for rubber products was incorporated into Rubena Náchod, and today, it is home to a number of companies, the most important of which is the pressing and tool shop of ONIVON, a.s. The factory has partially retained its original character, but over the years there have been a number of insensitive interventions, both in the mass of the buildings and in the design of the facades – the original wooden windows and glass-concrete panels have been replaced with plastic windows that do not respect the original window layout. The fair-face masonry surfaces were replaced by terracotta tiles and some plastered facades were clad, which disrupted the original articulation of the facades. 
 

KK