Johann Tost textile factory

   
Jihlava-born Johann Tost (1755–1831) worked with Joseph Haydn (1732–1809) and played second violin in Haydn's court orchestra at the Eszterházy family in Eisenstadt between 1783 and 1787. In 1789, Haydn asked him, as a capable businessman, to find a publisher for String Quartets, Op. 54 and 55 and Symphony Nos. 88 and 89. Tost found a publisher in Paris and the sale of the manuscripts was successful. As a token of his gratitude, Haydn dedicated the six String Quartets, Op. 64 composed in 1790 to Tost. After marrying a wealthy Viennese widow, Tost ended his career as a violinist and founded a successful Viennese textile firm with his wife.

In 1800, he asked the Austrian War Ministry for a financial loan to build a factory for the production of military cloth. For the project, he chose a place in his native Jihlava in the Špitálské suburb north of the city walls. Within two years, Tost received a factory licence and had a spacious building built along Třebízského Street, which housed a wool spinning mill and a textile finishing plant. He had also a laundry and a wool dye house built, which were located under the Brněnský Bridge. At the same time, clerk's houses and a cloth drying house were built, where Mathias Plott is documented as the builder in 1804.

The factory was equipped with twenty-six spinning jennies, which were assembled by a mechanic from England. And because Tost met with the disapproval of the Jihlava weaving masters, he had to place the planned additional forty looms in a new building in Štoky on the square. Tost's project was generous, and the owner expected an early repayment of the loan and a regular profit. Unfortunately,Napoleon's second invasion of the Habsburg monarchy was launched in 1809 (a memorial to the event is erected by the state road between Štoky and Antonínový Důl) and the weaving mill in Štoky had to be cleared out and converted into an infirmary. The looms stopped, and that was the beginning of the end of Tost's business. Inexperience, waste of resources, and excessive expectations soon caused the textile factory to file for bankruptcy. The bankruptcy proceedings were only terminated in 1843. In the meantime, the buildings began to fall into disrepair and waited for a new owner.

At that time, the Tobacco Directorate of the Ministry of Finance (Ředitelství Tabákové režie c. k. ministerstva financí) owned a tobacco processing factory in the Louka Monastery near Znojmo. As the monastery was being closed down, the Jihlava city administration thought of arranging for the relocation of the manufactory to the dilapidated buildings of Tost’s former textile factory. Approval was granted and the tobacco manufactory moved to Jihlava in 1851.

With the new product line came the restoration of the factory site and the addition of new buildings, which were constructed by the Civil Engineering Department of the General Tobacco Directorate (Stavebnětechnické oddělení generálního ředitelství Tabákové režie). First, a long three-section building was erected along Srázná Street, where cigar production later took off. In 1888, a warehouse building was added on a narrow plot of land at the corner of Třebízského and Úvozu Streets. Between 1891 and 1895, two three-section workshop buildings were added on Havlíčkova Street, where cigarettes were packed. At the end of the 19th century, the tobacco factory employed 3,000 workers, most of whom were women.

The factory underwent further structural changes at the beginning of the 1930s. At that time, the premises were already owned by the Czechoslovak Tobacco Directorate(Československá tabáková režie). Renovation was carried out between 1931 and 1934 according to the project of the Prague architect Karel Roštík (1884–1969). The construction work was carried out by the Prague construction company of engineer Radim Matolín.

First, a warehouse was moved into the complex from the site of today's ice arena as part of the reconstruction. Roštík designed a new double-section reinforced concrete warehouse with six floors. The building followed the curve of Havlíčkova Street. Raw tobacco was moved into the new warehouse and the old wooden one was closed. An office building and a residential block were built on the site of the administration building. An enclosure wall with a main entrance and two side gates was built from Havlíčkova Street. The courtyard was landscaped and the flaking façades of the older buildings were restored. The factory technology was also modernised. By 1933, it was equipped with electrically powered machines. The workshop equipment included 128 packaging, cutting, and other machines. Nevertheless, women's manual labour was still necessary and prevalent.

Tobacco production continued until 1 April 1958, when TeslaJihlava was established as a branch plant of the 03 national enterprise Tesla Lanškroun and gradually occupied the entire industrial premises. Female workers began assembling coil capacitors there, as well as other electrical components from 1964, including various connectors and contacts, which again required fine manual skills. The technology soon expanded to include metal stamping and electroplating.

After the revolution in 1989, the company in Jihlava became independent and started producing membrane keyboards. The successor company Automotive Lighting a. s. changed its production to electrical components for the automotive industry, which was moved to new premises in Hruškové Dvory in 2006. This was followed by extensive renovation of the former site, which took place in several stages between 2010 and 2015. The successful project was created by the architect Ladislav Vlachynský from the Brno A90 studio. To a large extent, the original layout, construction, and external appearance of the site have been preserved. The massive perimeter wall of the buildings and the original cast-iron columns of the halls supporting the preserved beamed ceilings were retained. The construction changes respect the horizontal and vertical structure of the original buildings and the shape of the roof; the windows and entrances have been partially modified. An ecumenical chapel was put in the attic of the newly built Home for the Elderly, consisting of a glued laminated timber frame in the shape of a broken arch and bio boards. Light is brought in through skylights at the top and through several openings in the door, filled with natural crystal set in a red ceramic circle. In addition to the Home for the Elderly with the chapel, the complex also includes a hotel, residential premises with garages, offices, medical offices, a nursery, a restaurant, business premises, the data centre of the science and technology park, and other services. The hotel in the Jihlava Terrace area was awarded the title of Building of the Year in the Highlands Region in 2014.

MP
Literature and other sources 

Next buildings on the trail