Louis and Anna Seidner's villa

   
The new detached family residence of Louis and Anna Seidner was built on a plot in the gradually emerging street network around the hospital complex. Louis Seidner (1870–1943) came from a German-speaking Jewish family of merchants and later industrialists. Louis's older brother Emil Seidner founded a knitting factory producing stockings and other goods, which was located by the river in Březinovy sady no. 2. Young Louis gained experience from his brother in the industry, and in 1910, he formed a partnership company with Otto Adam, director of another knitting factory. There was also a kinship between the partners – their wives, Anna Seidner (1881–1935) and Ella Gabriela Adam, were sisters, descended from the Pollack family. In 1931, the company Otto Adam&Louis Seidner purchased the Humanicshoe factory on Havlíčkova Street and set up a knitting factory there. Mr and Mrs Adam soon built their own villa at Vrchlického Street 12, but in a completely different style. For the design of their new residence, the Seidners chose the German-speaking architect Adolf Foehr from Prague, who had already completed several important projects in Prague and the borderlands. Foehr established himself primarily as a designer of bank buildings and apartment blocks for wealthy German-speaking clients. Foehr's design office in Prague's Holešovice, founded in 1908, was one of the largest in Prague.

For the Jihlava manufacturer, Foehr designed a generous villa in a classical style, set in a garden. The construction management was entrusted to Emanuel Lang from Jihlava. On the outside, the villa is characterised by minimal decorative elements and by symmetrically distributed spaces with five semicircular avant-corps on the sides topped with bell roofs. The house is covered by a massive mansard roof, and a conservatory with an upper terrace upstairs opens into the garden at the rear. The internal layout and furnishings are typologically reminiscent of English family residences, characterised by an entrance hall with a fireplace and staircase leading to the upper floors. The hall of the house was covered with wooden coffering up to the first floor, while the banister staircase, all the doors, and the fireplace cladding were also wooden. The hall continued on to the large salon and the adjoining dining room. A sliding glass door separated the gentlemen's room on the south side from the hall. A similar door can also be found between the dining room and the salon. A conservatory adjoined the eastern side of the house on the ground floor, from which the garden could be reached by two outdoor staircases. The wooden cladding is repeated in the main rooms. The whole house was completely renovated with respect to its original design, including wooden cladding in the interior and panelling. The villa was separated from the street by a fence with two gates, and an extension with a garage and a caretaker's flat was attached to the northern line of the house.

Louis Seidner was involved in several associations. Adolf Foehr was connected to him through his membership in the male satirical Schlaraffiasociety. In Jihlava, its members were associated under the name Iglaviafrom 1887. The society could be seen as a game that had its own rules, and the organisation was similar to orders of chivalry. Each member had a nickname, minutes of meetings were often kept in verse, the societies had their own calendar and a number of made-up words, so it is difficult to understand some of the expressions today. The purpose of the society was to foster social relations, friendship, and above all humour. Members were also interested in literature and music. Its language was German. In its greatest glory, Jihlava’s Schlaraffiahad about fifty members, but it probably disappeared before the Second World War.

After the occupation in March 1939, the Jewish owners had to move to Prague. The flat of head of the Jihlava Gestapo, Emanuel Sladek, and the SS headquarters were set up in their house. Louis Seidner died in the Treblinka concentration camp in Poland in 1943. At least his children, his son, Robert, and daughter, Františka, managed to save themselves from the Nazis by emigrating. Emanuel Sladek was sentenced to death by the People's Court in Jihlava and executed in 1947. After the war, the house became national property. It has had a number of tenants. From 1952 until the beginning of the 1990s, it housed a paediatric institute. It was then restituted to the heirs of Louis Seidner, who sold it to new owners at the beginning of the millennium.

JL
Literature and other sources 

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