Otto Steffel's villa

   
This terraced house stands almost at the beginning of Telečská Street, which winds from the centre, forming one of the arteries of the Matiční (Panenské) suburb. Extensive building work was underway in this residential district of Jihlava in the twenties and thirties, developing a kind of garden city. The typical form of construction, i.e. garden villas, which were relatively inefficient economically and in the use of the land, was replaced with a more effective option in the form of terraced houses with smaller gardens.

Konrad Weigner, a German builder from Jihlava, was the architect of many such terraced houses in this suburb, especially on Telečská, Seifertova, Wolkerova, and Bratří Čapků Streets, which he designed for the workers' housing cooperative Gemeinnützige Arbeiter-Bau & Wohnung-Genesenschaft. Weigner's other works in Jihlava include villas for private, mostly German clients, which are characterised by a more lavish and individualised design. This also applies to the two adjacent villas, no. 1727 and 1728, as well as the corner villa at no. 1726, for which is assumed attributed to Weigner.

The original project documentation for this house has not survived, with the exception of the floor plan of the basement and ground floor of the house with a note saying "project approved by assessment of 22/April 1915". Further information can only be found by comparing the documents for the two neighbouring villas (where Max Kohnstein is listed as the owner of house no. 1727 and Konrad Weigner as the owner of no. 1728), which also show the state of the villa's immediate surroundings. At the time of the purchase of the land and the construction, which took place between September 1928 and August 1929, the project was approved by a neighbour, DrOtto Steffel, who occupied the already erected corner villa at no. 1726. Similarly, a map from 1924 shows a building with an identical floor plan to that used at no. 1726 on Telečská Street. In 1932, Julius Zupka is listed as the owner of villa no. 1728, originally Weigner's villa. If any link can be found between the corner villa at no. 1726 and Weigner, it would be no later than on that date. It can be assumed that Weigner bought the house sometime between 1929 and 1932 and moved into it either from villa no. 1728, or even from his original residence at Na Valech 10, and made minor structural alterations to it. These conclusions, which cast doubt on Weigner’s assumed authorship, would explain why this villa differs in appearance and quality from other houses by this architect, not least those in its immediate vicinity.

The street façade of this three-storey house is distinguished by its simple, subtle, and elegant design with an oriel window extending to both its floors as a polygon, and segmentally on the first floor. The house consists of a basement, two residential floors on the raised ground floor and first floor (appearing therefore as the first and second floors), and probably an attic. The partial floor plan from the 1915 area assessment and a drawing of the floor plan of the subsequent co-owners of the property, Karel Holý and Karel Mach (who, as participants in the resistance movement, were allocated flats in the house as confiscated property on 9 September1950), show at least the state of the house in the 1950s and 1960s, when each, along with their families, occupied one floor. Drawings of the ground and first floors show a two-wing flat with two rooms facing south-east towards the street, and a back room with a kitchen, a maid's room (labelled 'closet' in the drawing, a room ventilated only through the kitchen or adjacent veranda), a veranda, a pantry, a bathroom, and a toilet located in the rear wing, with windows facing the garden. This room on the ground and first floors was later adjusted to include windows on the south-west façade. The character of the rooms at the time when the house was occupied by at least two families seems to had been greatly influenced by the later need for two separate dwelling units on each floor. Due to the two-wing layout of the floor plan and the absence of a hall or corridor in the centre of the composition, each of the flats has a distinctly pass-through character. The then owners, Karel Holý and Karel Mach, complained about it and unsuccessfully asked for permission to change the layout of the rooms. For example, the already small kitchen with an area of 9.48 m2had three doors and two windows, leaving little space for kitchen equipment.

Archival documents from the 1960s mention the relatively poor condition of the house, especially the soaked walls, the completely drenched basement flat and the fact that the house had not been maintained in any way up to that time. At that time, at the request of the then owners, the original enclosure in the form of a stone wall with posts and a wooden fence, which had collapsed, was replaced by metal posts with wire mesh.

Other minor structural modifications were made to the house, such as the addition of windows on the south-west façade, the installation of a door in place of a window on the basement façade (both modifications were made in 1966), and the replacement of the original windows with plastic-framed windows on the ground floor. Otherwise, the house appears to be in a well-preserved original condition. This is quite atypical of the Matiční suburb area, where many houses were later adapted into multi-generation houses.

Within the development of villas in Jihlava, this building fits into the historicist stream of the 1920s. Its façade bears baroque-style features and details such as the high gable of the steep roof, the volutes that connect the roof to the structure of the house, and the gable breaking through the stylised chasuble window. These features give the house the overall appearance of elegance and lightness that would certainly make it Weigner's most successful project. Unfortunately, we cannot be sure of his contribution to the house, despite knowing his other projects in Jihlava. The identity of the individual who built the villa sometime before 1924 remains unknown.

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Literature and other sources 

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