Hradec Králové First Cotton Spinning Mill Dr. Richard Anninger

In 1908, Richard Anninger, the son of textile manufacturer Wilhelm Abel, founded the First Hradec Králové Cotton Spinning Mill Dr. Richard Anninger. The design of the factory was entrusted to architect Bruno Bauer, an expert on industrial buildings and a graduate of Prague Technical University. In 1907, he designed a two-story building with a reinforced concrete skeleton for the factory owner, one of the first of its kind in the Czech lands. The construction, carried out between 1908 and 1911, was overseen by contractors Bohumír Hollman and Josef Jihlavec. 

 

This first phase included the main factory building, including a boiler room, a courtyard wing, and a detached warehouse and shed. The southeastern wing, which originally featured a chimney, no longer exists, and the factory’s dominant feature became the sprinkler tower in the central part of the western wing of the spinning mill. In the southern part of the building, there was a second, lower tower with a tent roof, which was later removed during subsequent modifications. While the factory façade was still segmented by traditional decorative elements (such as cordon cornices, semi-columns, rusticated surfaces, and segmentally finished first-floor windows), several details also reflected the influence of the contemporary Art Nouveau style. This was particularly evident in the dominant sprinkler tower, featuring a decorative attic and the inscription ‘Přádelna’ (Spinning Mill) in a typical Art Nouveau font. All steam engines were supplied by the Kukleny engineering works Broumovský, Šulc & Sohr.

 

The shed was designed as a small single-story structure made of half-timbered masonry with a shed roof, while the storehouse as a single-story building with a hipped roof. Its façade featured semi-columns of exposed brickwork combined with plastered surfaces.

 

Between 1911 and 1912, the main factory building was extended by five spans in the northern wing, reaching its present size. The construction was carried out by Bohumír Hollman and Co. In 1912, the storeroom was also expanded with an additional room and a shed, a project undertaken by contractor Vladimír Procházka based on his own design. 

 

Between 1913 and 1914, a ground-floor boiler room was added to accommodate a third steam boiler. The building was connected to the central part of the southeastern wing of the main factory and was designed and constructed by the company of Vladimír Procházka. 

Between 1916 and 1917, the spinning mill was expanded with a room for a shredding machine, which enabled the processing of old cotton rags. This building, located between the main factory and the courtyard, was designed and executed by contractor Jan Vojtěch from Pouchov. 

One of the complex’s more distinctive detached structures was a weighing house built in 1915, located at the entrance to the spinning mill from the former Kydlinovská Street. Designed as a single-story building with a stone foundation wall and a saddle roof, it featured a short arcade facing the spinning mill as its defining architectural element. The façade was adorned with a crown cornice, while the gable of the street-facing façade included pilaster strips and a combination of rough and smooth plastered surfaces. An arcade arch opened toward the street, and a blind arched entrance was indicated on the right side of the façade to maintain its symmetry. However, the original appearance of the weighing house has been lost due to recent insensitive modifications. 

 

In 1929, the factory was taken over by Rudolf Steinský-Sehnoutka. At the time, it employed 425 workers, and by 1934, it operated nearly 37,000 spindles for spinning American cotton, making it the largest textile company in the city. In 1948, the company was nationalized and later integrated into the newly founded Vertex company, which shifted production to glass fibers and laminate. Many insensitive modifications were made during this period, including the demolition of the chimney in the southeastern part of the complex, the replacement of windows, and the simplification of the façade. 

 

In 2003, the deteriorating building was purchased by the city of Hradec Králové. Following a reconstruction carried out between 2011 and 2012 based on a design by architect David Vávra, the building was repurposed to house a learning center. 

 

KK