Psychiatric Hospital Jihlava

   
Behind the town border on Brněnský Hill (Brněnský kopec), on the road leading to Brno, the Provincial Workhouse (Zemská donucovací pracovna) for short-term convicts serving their sentence was established on land belonging to the Jihlava Municipality in 1889. The workhouse was a typical prison building – the main longitudinal building provided rooms for 200–250 prisoners and they were located symmetrically along a central corridor in the outermost wings, while the centre of the layout was occupied by offices for staff and a chapel on the second floor. In the opposite building across the courtyard were warehouses and kitchens, as well as knitting workshops on the upper floors. Due to a shortage of beds available to patients in psychiatric care throughout Moravia, it was decided to establish a Jihlava branch of the Brno Institution for the Mentally Ill on the site of the workhouse. On 24. 5. 1902, the operation of the inpatient psychiatric care was commenced in Jihlava, under the Provincial Insane Asylum Branch (Zemský filiální ústav pro choromyslné), with priority being given to "incurable" patients.

The original layout of the workhouse was not significantly affected by this adaptation. Instead of the prison dormitories and day rooms, wards for the sick were set up – for men in the north wing and for women in the south wing. The wards also occupied part of the courtyard building, increasing the total capacity to 320 beds. However, it soon became clear that the capacity for patients was still insufficient. Therefore, in 1914, the institution management approved plans for its expansion. However, the construction work was interrupted by the war, and only the Infectious Diseases Pavilion, the Disinfection Pavilion, and the Dissection Pavilion to the north-east of the institution were erected. The excavations for the foundations of the other pavilions had to be filled in. The necessary building development of the entire premises could only take place after the war.

In 1919, MUDr Arnošt Metelka took up the position offirst assistant doctor. Soon he became director of the institution, and in 1923, he acquired the necessary land to the east together with a farm in Handlovy Dvory, which fit the concept of treating the sick by working in the fields. From 1925, Metelka strived to create a modern psychiatric hospital, inspired by his visits to many modern institutions both at home and abroad. He presented his experience and plans to the Technical Department of the Brno Provincial Office (Zemský úřad), where an overall plan was drawn up with a layout of ten separate identical pavilions on an L-shaped floor plan, set east of the old buildings up a slight hill. The hospital building was located in a central position, axially to the access road. The facilities buildings and the boiler house were moved to the southern edge of the site. The plan envisaged a chapel, but it was never built. Neither was the administrative building in the northern part by the access road or the other six pavilions for patients.

The architect Vladimír Kožíšek was entrusted with the task of drawing up the plans for the pavilions, while the supervision was carried out by the government councillor Bohumil Šel. The patient wards in all the pavilions faced the sunny side. Metelka started the construction of the first four pavilions, grouped together in the lower part of the hill, with the first ceremonial dig in 1932. Two years later, they were completed by the company of Jindřich Knorr, a builder from Jihlava, and by the Brno company Ferrobeton. Each pavilion had its own garden with direct access from the terraces. As there was tempered glass in the windows, there was no need for bars. Following the example of the newly built Surgical Pavilion at Jihlava Hospital, Metelka successfully demanded flat roofs, or at least a flat appearance. The pavilions were given a purist form with clearly arranged structures. By 1934, the Nekvasil and Kolbingerconstruction company from Brno also completed the new boiler house, which distributed steam through underground pipes to the central heating system in the pavilions.

From 1935 to 1937, the construction of another hospital pavilion followed, the design of which was undertaken by the architect and government councillor Bohumil Šel. The construction consisted of a central building on a T-shaped floor plan comprising three wings which housed the general and neurological departments with two operating theatres and rooms for water, electric, and other therapies. In the south wing, a pharmacy was entered through the glass entrance hall. The light green tiles in the lobby and on the staircase and the original paint matched the modern trend of colourful sanatoriums. The hospital pavilion was completed in 1937 by the construction company Dvořák from Brno. Soon after, construction of a Facilities Pavilion for the kitchen and laundry began, which was strictly oriented along the north-south axis by the access road. The project was developed by the Brno architect Bedřich Rozehnal while he was designing hospital buildings for the Provincial Office (Zemský úřad) in Brno. The layout was divided into a kitchen with separate issue counters for men and women and other associated facilities and warehouses in the north wing. The architect placed a laundry room with a sorting room, ironing room, and other facilities in the southern section. The whole building was to serve as a perfectly connected and functional machine for two separate operations. In the middle of the layout were the dining room and staff lounges with a terrace. The horizontal structure with strip windows and the space distributed according to the function makes the Facilities Pavilion building one of the most outstanding examples of functionalist architecture in Jihlava.

The German occupation caught the Facilities Pavilion just before the completion of the interior furnishings. The entire area fell into the hands of the German riot police, who modified the pavilions to suit their needs. As a remnant of this sad era, low concrete embrasures can still be found in several places, one just outside the entrance with the gatehouse. On the site of the former laundry in the Facilities Pavilion, the Germans set up a cinema hall, which is now a gymnasium. The Pavilion of Infectious Diseases was extended with a stable and a forge, which after the war were converted into a theatre hall by the employees of the hospital as part of a "Z" action. In 1955, a bowling alley was added to the hall. The other pavilions later underwent layout modifications too, but there was no more rapid building development like in the interwar period. The implementation of a residential building for employees according to Bedřich Rozehnal's design remained on paper only. In 1950, three residential houses for employees were built on the opposite side of Brněnská Road.

JL
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