The villa is located in the area of the former Panenské předměstí suburb, on a site delimited by the now vanished Baroque fortification from the Thirty Years’ War. Back in 1940, Jana Masaryka Street was called Am Wallgraben-Gasse (Na Příkopech, Na Valech). The plan of the city from 1829 shows continuous unevenness resembling a moat roughly on the site of the villa today. In 1755, the status of Jihlava as a stronghold was officially cancelled, the fortification was demolished and the moat filled in. A terrain deviation that is still noticeable on the site today, and which is also reflected by buildings on Jana Masaryka Street, is a remnant of the former moat. Around the middle of the 19th century, the place was called Beim Friedhofe (U Hřbitova). The former cemetery Church of the Holy Spirit (Kostel sv. Ducha), dating back to 1572 and preserved today in its form from the 1890s, is the oldest building in the area. Today’s Smetana Gardens (Smetanovy sady) park was established on the site of the former cemetery in 1891. Building development on the site of the aforementioned house is first evidenced on the map of Jihlava and surroundings in 1825. The building which used to stand on the site before the villa was the primary building. It did not respect the existing street and had a rectangular floor plan with a detached rear extension.
In August 1901, together with the application for planning, a layout drawing was submitted for approval, depicting this extension in the original form, with an adjacent single-storey villa with a terrace extended by about three metres to the south and one metre to the west compared to the original demolished building. The terrain section drawing clearly shows that the terrain at that time conformed to the old moat and had to be partially filled for the purposes of the construction. In April 1902, the Building Authority evaluated a new drawing, depicting the villa in the form that was built subsequently. It involved not only a changed entrance to the rear older wing, but also a brand new, more contemporary composition of the structure towards the garden, as well as the fact that the villa extended over the original street line towards the street. The architectural drawing indicates that the designer also changed, though the builder remained the same. The Building Authority approved the demolition of the original house on the site of the villa (no. 187 at the time) in May 1902. The rear wing was only partially torn down at the time, and the remaining part was attached to the new building with its imprint visible until the last renovation.
The original owner of the villa, Marie Karas, was born in 1867 and came from Chlumec nad Cidlinou. She lived in Jihlava with her daughter Marie Anna from 1897. Marie Anna was born in Vienna in 1889. In 1899, Karel Schumpeter from Třešť, a manufacturer and businessman engaged in cloth weaving, became the legal guardian of the young Marie Anna. After his death in 1906, he was posthumously recognised as her father. In the 1910 census, Marie Karas listed herself as a German-speaking Catholic. Very little is known about Marie Karas’s occupation. Court records show that she maintained a long-term relationship with Karel. In 1901, she also owned the adjacent house on Dvořákova Street 12 (Geistgasse 12), where she reported she was residing as late as 1910. In 1908, she sold the villa on Jana Masaryka Street to the Hellman family that was of Jewish origin, and took up residence in Prague. Marie’s relationship with Karel Schumpeter is most probably the key to understanding the generous and individualised architectural concept of the building.
Josef Kubička from Tábor, the master bricklayer and builder who carried out the construction, was one of the few successful builders of Czech origin in Jihlava at the time. In addition to a number of other projects, he was also engaged in the construction of the court building (now the college) on Tolstého Street and the pair of tenement houses (no. 23 and 25) in the Art Nouveau style on Mahlerova Street from 1902–1903, which are contemporary with Marie Karas’s villa.
Ladislav Novotný (1873–1938), an architect and construction contractor, who co-designed the villa, came from a business family from Počátky. After completing his studies at the Secondary Technical School of Civil Engineering in Prague, he continued his studies in 1897–1900 at the Vienna Academy as a student of architecture under Victor Luntz, subsequently graduating with distinction. His architectural and entrepreneurial work can mainly be found in Počátky and its environs, and in České Budějovice. Creative collaboration with the architect Antonín Hübschmann had an interesting effect on his work.
Unfortunately, not many archival images have survived. Therefore, the original plans are a key source of information. The individual illustrations depicting the development of the house only provide partial information about structural changes. Drawings from 1957, depicting its possible appearance at the time, and a property appraisal from 1952 are the most interesting documents. Other documents are a photograph from 1969 and a description of the building from 1980. Based on this information and surviving materials, the intended appearance and concept of the villa can be inferred, which were an item of interest during the last renovation.
It is a detached building with a basement and three floors. In the east, the villa is adjacent to the existing single-storey outhouse. The unusual position inside the newly emerging block is a result of negotiations held with regard to the existence of the older buildings in the area.
A comparison between the original plans and the actual outcome shows that some parts of the building were done differently. The original plans do not specify the function of the house, but in general it was as follows. The front garden was accessible from the right side, as it is today, and the architect envisaged a small piazzetta on the access route to the house. The height difference between the terrain outside and the floors in the house was similar to today, and it was bridged by stairs. The entry foyer was most likely separated from the corridor by a richly glazed wooden partition. A similar partition separated the corridor from the stair hall. This was also indicated by the concept of the original terrazzo tiles.
This space led to a kitchen with a larder on one side and a room with a pantry on the other side. The room and the kitchen were probably used independently from the rest of the building. They were likely occupied by the owner’s daughter, most probably with her grandmother, who lived in the house until 1906. Behind the wooden partition, a stair hall opened on the right side and there was an entrance to a larger room on the left side. There was also a window right opposite the partition. A smaller door connected the room with the adjacent larger one, and a door added later connected it with the adjacent kitchen. A toilet and staircase were accessible from the kitchen. The stairs to the first floor led to a wooden partition, behind which was an open L-shaped corridor. On the right side, there was a preparation room, again separated by a wooden partition, and this led to a closet. There was a toilet beyond the preparation room. On the left side behind the wooden partition past the stairs was the owner’s private room, from where one entered the bedroom, or – through a small door – the bathroom situated in the corner above the entrance. Right opposite the staircase were the dining room and drawing room, interconnected with each other. In the attic, there was one large room situated on the axis of a large window on the west frontage. The basement was divided into a storeroom, a coal store, a laundry room, and a wine, beer and food cellar.
The function of the house changed significantly after it was purchased in 1909 by the Hellman family, who used it later as a tenement house and as a health centre. The surviving descriptions in the original plans, probably from this period, show that the downstairs rooms were adapted to a surgery and a laboratory with a waiting room, the kitchen was adapted to an X-ray room, the adjacent pantry to a darkroom and the other kitchen to a physiotherapy room. Upstairs, there was a preparation room, the adjacent closet was transformed into a technical room with “clean” and “not clean” operation. The dining room was adapted to a dentist’s surgery, the drawing room to a surgery, the antechamber to a waiting room, the bedroom to another surgery, and the bathroom to a four-chambered galvanic bath, providing treatment by a combination of electrical energy and hydrotherapy. The room in the attic was complemented by a kitchen and partitioned, and housed the caretaker.
The architectural appearance of the villa was based on the romantic asymmetrical silhouette of the high saddle roof and on the prominent elevated vertical of the avant-corps (or oriel window) supported by large brackets. The structure arranged in this way was divided at the façade level by relatively frequent openings of different sizes and differently oriented windows. A smooth transition between the façades and the roof, practically without any overhang, is achieved with a cavetto moulding. On the western side, the architect made the transition even smoother by using wood and adding wooden cladding around the windows in the roof space. The interconnection between the façade and the roof is also enhanced by the three-dimensional dynamic metal holders of the roof gutter, which in addition to the central motif of a scarab, hide the initials of the original owner MK in the lower gable. The gutters of the smaller roofs above the corner avant-corps and above the entrance portico are supported by simple small metal brackets, topped with a stylised motif of a four-petal flower.
In the original plan, the gutter was also supported by small brackets on the south side. The architect thus showed great interest in the effect of distinctive vertical gradation. The key motif of the frontage is placed around the dining room window on the first floor. The sgraffito above its low mounting features a wave and two wreaths decorated with ribbons rising above it. The surviving work deviates from the original drawings. The left wreath features a stylised tangle of the letters M and K, the right one shows the year 1902 and the signature of Novotný, almost undoubtedly the architect himself, and the date 25/9 underneath it. The sgraffito is concealed by an undulating canopy featuring a motif of coiling stems with berries. The lower edge of the canopy is decorated by an undulated motif with rivets, similar to perforated metal window sills. Under the central window, along its entire width, there is a decorative window box featuring motifs of berry clusters and leaves resembling those of a Swiss cheese plant. The drawing of the villa also depicted simple mountings at the windows on the first floor, fitted with a distinctive centrifugal motif on the sides. The decorative features of the buildings undoubtedly included ornamental gutter boxes with motifs of the sun, which are identifiable in a photograph taken at the end of the 1960s and in a description of the building from 1980. There is a lack of clarity about the base, which was clad in square tiles in the frontage area, most probably glazed ones given the trend of the time. The ambitious and period appearance is also evidenced by the wrought-iron fence with the typical motif of an elliptical arch with a stylised flame (or upturned heart), set in a stylish solid stone base. The design of the eastern wall, drawn up additionally several months later but not officially approved, is also surrounded by uncertainty. What is known for certain, however, is that it was not implemented in its entirety. Given the style and look, it was Novotný's design, too.
From what has survived, the artistic style of the interior can also be deduced. It became a subject of interest for the writer during the last renovation from 2015–2017, managed by Dagmar and Miroslav Velehradský. The metal glazed entrance door (grille) is a superior feature on its own. Nonetheless, in terms of the style, it is more of a common historicist production. The balusters have the same character as those on the low fence and correspond to the period style in general. At the base level, the entry foyer is segmented by a continuous vertical frieze, which also runs on beyond the wooden wall in the corridor. This feature is reflected in the same repeated pattern of the central door cassette, linings and skirting of the wooden wall, as well as in the vertical grooving of the window linings and segmentation of the door fanlight. When taking in the hall, it is necessary to consider the original delimitation of the space, given by the now absent wooden partition, behind which a fanlight was outlined as seen from the entrance. Today, the hall is characterised by a frieze and wooden lining flanked by a stucco plant motif of stems with a geometrised broad-leaved crown. The glass of the west facing window is decorated with an etched motif of a blooming climbing plant, well known from the Secession Building in Vienna. In the corners of the corridor, the frieze runs on in the form of rising grooved strips up to the door lintel. The ceiling is segmented by similar strips laid perpendicular to the corridor and running on to the wall. The architect conceived the door linings, and the wooden filling in the door head in particular, organically. Olive green was probably the prevalent colour used by the joiners. On some doors, during their last renovation, gold winding lines, crowned by a blue poppy, were discovered.
The walls had a fine light plaster. The floor was covered with grey terrazzo tiles in two shades, bordered by a right-angled meander. Behind the wooden wall below the staircase, the ceiling strips changed direction by ninety degrees and ran towards the staircase. The architect accentuated the foot of the staircase with a cylindrical motif, from where the steps seem to unfold organically. This might be merely a remnant of an unrealised design for a spiral staircase. The wrought-iron handrail, comprising intertwined flower patterns, also starts at the cylinder. At the first floor level, the patterns become abstract and change into ornamental, rhythmic, undulating lines.
The dominant feature of the stair hall is a mural depicting an arcade formed by stylised trees. The base comprises an ornamental root system, the shaft a bunch of parallel stems and the crown a stylised ring with undulating tendrils growing in all directions. The space between the individual tree trunks is filled with cassettes, which is rather illogical and contrary to the central scene. There are paintings on the landing and stair stringers from the bottom, too, depicting rich lines of blue poppies in the fields. In terms of style, the architect conceived the stair hall as a vertically culminating garden. This impression intensifies on the top floor where the height of the space from the landing reaches nearly five metres. Unfortunately, none of the room furnishings have survived. Some rooms were wallpapered, while other rooms were simply painted. Imprints of stucco mirrors remain on the ceilings.
With slight embellishment, it can be said that the appearance of the interior was based on the contrast between the architectural concept and the floral organic flow, which pervades on the walls, windows and floor tiling, and materialises in the space in the form of lampshades, handrails and furniture. The villa was complemented by quite a large garden with a hexagonal gazebo in the south-east corner.
In 2014, the villa was unoccupied and left unmaintained for a year. It underwent many modifications in the past – there used to be a kitchen in the cellar, a dining room on the ground floor, and classrooms upstairs. The attic studio was occupied by the school caretaker. It was connected with an adjacent school by a walkway.
While the façade was falling off and the sheet metal flaking, the interior features were protected by thick layers of ivory paint reminding us of the hygiene standards of the last occupant. Mature trees grew in the courtyard. Despite the poor maintenance, the house was an example of exquisite Art Nouveau architecture in a damaged and disguised condition due to a lack of interest over a long period, but still original and valuable to a large extent. Almost all the brick and carpentry structures, wooden panelling, including linings and indoor window shutters, ironwork, hardware and joinery, as well as – to a certain extent – the flooring, stucco decoration in the corridor and tiling in one of the toilets have been preserved in the building. The original plastering, including paint, has been preserved in a number of rooms as well as on the exterior. On the first floor, in the original drawing room, a newspaper base layer has been preserved under the wallpaper, with the date “Freitag 10. Jäner 1902” (Friday, 10th of January 1902) identifiable on it. During the construction work, it transpired that a trace of the original rich paintwork had been preserved under subsequent paint layers on the staircase, which was then restored and completed. The original colour scheme of the windows and decorative paint on the interior doors was revealed. When the joint of two roof beams was uncovered, we were delighted to see the inscription “Zimmerlt. Franz Ganswohl, Iglau am 1. Juli 1902” (carpenter(s), F. G., Jihlava on the 1st of June 1902), and the discovery of the original slate pattern in the loft helped to restore the original roofing material.
From the middle of 2015 to the beginning of 2017, the house underwent major renovation. The designers conceived it as a complex modernisation and adaptation to office premises and residential use in the attic. This was driven by an effort to present the building as beautiful and, in the modern sense of the word, functional. To a large extent, the original appearance of the building was restored, based on the presentation of high-quality art and craft details as they were conceived in the ambitious architectural whole.
JN
