Jan Hortenský's house

Jan Hortenský's house on the corner plot by Jiráskova and Hamerníkova Streets was built from 1933–1934. When the architect Augustin Třeček from Třešť was designing it, several other buildings in the purist spirit had already been built on Jiráskova Street. The implementation of the house was relatively fast. Jan Hortenský bought the land in the summer of 1933, the project was created shortly after Christmas of the same year, and the finished building was officially approved for use in mid-September 1934. It took 13 months from the purchase of the land to the moment when the house became officially fit for living, give or take a day. As Jan Hortenský was doing business in Ústí nad Labem at that time, he managed the construction remotely, and it was supervised by his son-in-law Pavel Vokáč.

Jan Hortenský's house is not very big. The two floors included a living room with a dining area, a kitchen, one bedroom, and one more room which served either as a children's room or as a bathroom. The character of Augustin Třeček’s work deliberately moved towards the still attractive purism. A bolder functionalism, which conceptualises the buildings in an airier way and opens their interior to the surrounding space to a greater extent, was not achieved here. The architecture of Jan Hortenský's house, composed of variously sized cubes, is still relatively classic and remains at the level of moderate modernism. The architect's work with the concept of volume is the most interesting endeavour. Each cube was designed for one room on the ground floor and another one upstairs. As a result, the house has a very irregular floor plan.

Jan Hortenský's house has a cellar, the ground floor is reserved for the main living areas, the first floor for bedrooms, and the attic is not fit for living as the space under the saddle roof with a low ridge is too small. What room is where can also be guessed from the street. The house basically does not open to Jiráskova and Hamerníkova Streets at all, there are only small windows in the utility, sanitary, and storage areas. Several steps lead to the house from Jiráskova Street, and the section containing the stairway also leads to the same street. The living room is ended in a semi-cylindrical shape facing the garden. Augustin Třeček did not give the house any large or strip windows, as was demanded by the functionalist style at that time. In this respect, it is useful to compare the house with the neighbouring functionalist villa at no. 49, which was built two years later according to a design by the Brno architect Bohuslav Fuchs.

The current state of the house does not reveal much about the original design of the façades. The structural concept, however, has remained unchanged. Augustin Třeček designed the façades in a relatively simple way – they were probably completely smooth, decorated with friezes around the windows and under the roof.

AV