Czech Eskompt Bank (Česká eskomptní banka)

   
The new building for the Jihlava branch of the Czech Eskompt Bank and Credit Institute, which had previously been located at Křížová Street 20, was built on the site of the demolished Salomon House. The offset from the street line on Komenského Street and the open building system was determined by the City Council. This meant constructing the building on an irregular area, connecting it to the existing block of buildings towards the centre, but leaving a free space on the northern side, which would be connected to the planned construction on what is now Jana Masaryka Street (formerly Na Valech) with the existing Duklacinema building. In the interwar period, the S.K. Rapid tennis court was located there, surrounded by an enclosure wall. A part of the old town fortification wall can still be found on the border of the plots. In the interwar period, the GermanHouse(Německý dům) association's plan to build an impressive seat for cultural events in Jihlava according to a design by Karl Wagner, which had been in the pipeline since 1870 on the site of the buried rampart, definitively faded away. Today, there is an open park area.

For the design of the bank building, the Prague bank headquarters involved the Prague architectural company of Karl Jaray, who was famous as a designer of bold reinforced concrete structures and had worked at the German Technical University in Prague since 1902 (as a professor since 1908). He had already gained experience with bank buildings while working on the Prague palace of the Vienna Banking Association. Thanks to Jaray's good personal relations with some bank directors, his office was commissioned during the 1920s to design several branches and the headquarters of the Czech Eskompt Bank (Česká eskomptní banka) in Ostrava, Šumperk, Ústí nad Labem, and Prague. Rudolf Hildebrand liaised closely with Karl Jaray, first in the school studio as his personal assistant, and later as a manager in Jaray's private office. Both German-speaking colleagues were of Jewish origin. Hildebrand spent most of his creative period in Prague. The team designed a neoclassical building for the Jihlava branch, representing the security and permanence of this banking institute in the new republic. In the 1920s, a distinctive style developed in response to this requirement, drawing on Wagner’s modernism and best applied to building commissions for state institutions. At that time, Neo-Classicism attracted part of the clientele with its monumentality, which was enhanced by the use of antiquing motifs, stone tiles, and increased scale. However, classic elements were put together in a new modern way and Jaray's conception of the Jihlava bank thus combined forms of classicism and purism.

The construction work was assigned to Pittel & Brausewetterfrom Brno. The rough construction was officially approved at the beginning of 1927 and the whole building was completed in the same year. In addition to the bank's offices and facilities, the new building also contained the bank director's flat. In the 1950s, flats for tenants were built on the upper floor.

After 1996, a new extension was built on the site of the wall circuit to expand the bank's capacities according to a project by the Penta Jihlava architectural studio under the direction of the architect Jan Remsa. Its scale was related to the existing building and the extension was sensitively integrated into the landscaping with a system of terraces and structural grading. The architects offset the four-storey extension without a cellar from the existing building and connected them with a glass atrium with a panoramic lift and staircase. Thanks in particular to its characteristic façade design, this extension is a successful example of postmodern architecture of the 1990s.

JL
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