Konrad Weigner

The architect Konrad Weigner was born as the first of seven children of Konrad Weigner, a master stonemason from Jihlava (born 14. 11. 1853 in Jihlava, died 7. 4. 1924) and Marie (born 25.3. 1863 in Jihlava, née Weber). The family lived and worked in Jihlava, on Na Valech Street. Konrad (the younger) married Fanny (Františka, born 1. 5. 1896 in Šternberk, née Honisch). According to the record in the marriage register, they had several children together, Konrad (born 1922), a daughter Hanelore (born 1926), and a daughter Margita (born 1929). In 1931, archival documents mention a son Kurt (8 years old), a son Jan (5 years old), and a daughter Markéta (2 years old). Until the completion of Konrad Weigner's own villa, the family lived at Na Valech 10, where letters were addressed to the architect in connection with the construction of a house at Telečská Street 36.

Nothing is known about his apprenticeship. He worked as a builder in Jihlava, where his name is mainly associated with houses and villa projects in the developing suburbs, especially in the Panenské suburb (or Matiční). In the 1920s and 1930s, he designed several blocks of terraced houses for the workers' housing cooperative Gemeinnützige Arbeiter-Bau & Wohnung-Genesenschaft. Weigner designed these two-storey houses for two families, one floor for each. These were often small flats with only one room and a kitchen. Weigner built houses like these on Seifertova Street (no. 1743, 1748, 1749 and 1750), Wolkerova Street (no. 1744, 1745, 1746, 1747, 1751 and 1752), Telečská Street (no. 1826, 1763, 1764 and 1766), and Bratří Čapků Street (no. 1828 and 1829). Many of these houses have been rebuilt. At the same time, especially in the late 1920s and early 1930s, he built houses for private clients, for example for Dr Josef Hoschka at Bratří Čapků Street no. 1833, and for Max Kohnstein at Telečská Street no. 1727. The latter villa is adjacent to two other projects of Weigner’s, which, due to the private nature of the commission, stand out from the typical terraced housing of the Panenské suburb. These three villas, including the architect's own noticeably more subtle and elegant house (no. 1726) have a much more urban character compared to the smaller houses.

Although Weigner's projects remain rather conservative in terms of their architectural qualities, in the abundance of buildings in the Panenské suburb, the architect contributed substantially to the development of the urban concept of the garden city in the districts of Jihlava behind the former walls.

He was a member of the regional leadership of the NSDAP and was shot for his political affiliation at the end of World War II, along with 18 other Germans from Jihlava. The sentence from the partisan court, which sat on Dvořák Street in house no. 1927, modified in 1928 by Weigner himself, was executed on 7 June in a forest near the village of Rančířov, south of Jihlava. He is buried in the family tomb in Jihlava cemetery, together with his father, mother, wife, and brother Adolf, who was a field marshal and died in 1942.

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