Czech Minority School (Česká menšinová škola)/Czech National School (Česká škola národní)

The beginning of the construction of the first new building for the Czech primary school after the establishment of the independent Czechoslovak Republic was delayed until 1924 due to lengthy negotiations over a suitable site. This was despite the fact that the Ministry of Public Works, based on a decision of the Ministry of Education and National Enlightenment, had requested that the city undertake this task back in 1920. A public tender for the design and construction of the school could not be launched until 1924. A sloped area in the neighbouring part of Dřevěné Mlýny near the church of St. John the Baptist (Kostel sv. Jana Křtitele) was allocated to it. It provided sufficient space for the school building as well as for the school garden and playground. The building was to serve two Czech primary schools and two Czech municipal schools. It could house five boys' and five girls' classes for a total of 350 pupils. The winning design was submitted by the architect Jaroslav Oplt, director of the Secondary Technical School (Vyšší průmyslová škola) in Brno. At the same time, the Brno firm of František and Arnošt Valenta succeeded in the tender for the construction work. The school opening ceremony was held on 20 September 1925.

The architect designed the school as a detached building with two wings. The main, middle building, which was the largest and tallest of the three, included a total of twelve classrooms, the head teacher's office, staffrooms, and facilities. Oplt placed the main entrance on the transverse axis and a small wing with sanitary facilities and a staircase on the opposite side of the building. The gymnasium occupied the entire southern two-storey wing, while the head teacher's flat was located in the northern wing. The strictly symmetrical layout is underlined by the massive smooth jambs of all the windows and the entrance door. At the back, towards the west, a semi-circular avant-corps with the main staircase brightens up the austere form of the building. The building can be classified as belonging to the conservative stream of architecture of the 1920s. However, with the pure forms of the façade and interiors, the architect also approached the principles of more progressive purism.

The Czech school was seized by the Germans after 1939 and classes had to be held in alternative premises and homes. The relief with the emblem of the Czech lion on the entrance façade was covered with plaster during the Protectorate. It was not uncovered until 2013.

In 1920, the architect Jaroslav Oplt had already drawn up a similarly conceived tender design for the Czech schools in Jihlava, which were to occupy a previously undeveloped block on the northern front of Malátova Street. Plans from the architect's estate show that he was still working on this project in 1923, when he produced another remarkable detailed sketch of the school in Classical Modernism. However, the plans to build a school on the site of the Panenský suburb were completely abandoned, and a few years later, the tenement houses of the State Tobacco Company (Státní tabáková firma) designed by the architect Vladimír Bolech were built there.

JL