Hubert Gessner

Graduated from the State Technical School in Brno (1885–1889), where one of his classmates Adolf Loos. After architectural apprenticeships in Opava and Moravská Ostrava, he spent 1894–1898 studying architectonic under Otto Wagner at Vienna’s Academy of Fine Arts, where his classmates included Josef Hoffmann, Jan Kotěra and Jože Plečnik. After graduation, he was employed at Wagner’s studio, and in 1899–1918 he worked for the Moravian Provincial Building Authority in Brno. In 1896–1905, Gessner designed a number of buildings (public projects in particular) in the Czech lands, mainly in Moravia: the District Sickness Fund in Brno (1903–1904), the municipal baths and sanatorium (both 1905), the Hotel Slezský Dvůr in Opava (1903) and the Hotel Jindřichův Dvůr in Nový Jičín (1906). In 1904–1912 he and his brother Franz, also an architect, ran a drafting office in Vienna. His work for the Social Democrats predates the First World War. In 1910–1912, he did a worker’s home and the party’s headquarters with editorial offices of Vorwärts (Forwards) in Vienna, as well as the editorial offices of Arbeiterwille (The Will of the Workers) in Graz. Also before the war, Gessner was involved in the construction of a number of tenement and cooperative buildings. After the war, he was the chief architect of the Reumann-Hof housing project, built in 1924–1926, and subsequently also the Karl-Seitz-Hof project (1926–1927). In 1905–1943, he realized more than a dozen industrial buildings in Vienna, Linz, Leoben and Innsbruck.

Ladislav Jackson

Architect
Hubert Gessner

Date of birth
20.10.1871 Valašské Klobouky

Deceased
29.1.1943 Vídeň

Sources
https://encyklopedie.brna.cz/home-mmb/?acc=profil_domu&load=468
https://kam.hradcekralove.cz/architekt/15-hubert-gessner