“In Brno, he [Adolf Loos] rebuked us all at the table. One didn’t finish a good sauce, another left a little rice and a third one some soup. And when he had his garnished beef in Plzeňský dvůr, we all had to take from his bowl, if only a few beans, a spoonful of cabbage or a single mushroom in vinegar. And he distributed his cheese to everyone on pieces of bread that he was breaking and handing out just like the Lord Jesus.”
Bohumil Markalous, Domov! [Home!], in: Adolf Loos, Řeči do prázdna. Soubor statí o architektuře, bydlení, ústroji a jiných praktických věcech, které uspořádal dr. Bohumil Markalous [Speaking into the Void. A Set of Essays on Architecture, Housing, Arrangement and Other Practicalities, Compiled by Dr. Bohumil Markalous], Praha 1929, pp. 227–229, p. cited 229.
“But you’ve ordered marble masons for tomorrow at eleven… But we have arranged a meeting with young architects for tonight… But… but…’ ‘Yes, but the lady is waiting… I’m going… do you want to accompany me?”
Bohumil Markalous, Domov! [Home!], in: Adolf Loos, Řeči do prázdna. Soubor statí o architektuře, bydlení, ústroji a jiných praktických věcech, které uspořádal dr. Bohumil Markalous [Speaking into the Void. A Set of Essays on Architecture, Housing, Arrangement and Other Practicalities, Compiled by Dr. Bohumil Markalous], Praha 1929, pp. 227–229, p. cited 229.
“At the time of the advent of constructivism, Moravian architects often enjoyed Loos’ company. He invited some of them to Vienna to show them his work. […] In Brno, the conditions for the development of new ideas were more favourable than in Prague, where the tradition of old institutions was surviving.”
Karel Honzík, Ze života avantgardy. Zážitky architektovy [From the Life of the Avant-garde. Experiences of an Architect], Praha 1963, p. 94.
The contacts of architect Adolf Loos with his hometown were resumed during the first half of the 1920s. He was brought there by the commission for the reconstruction of the Bauer chateau in Old Brno. However, he didn’t attend his mother’s funeral in 1921 (after his father’s death, he had voluntarily let her disinherit him). In 1924, his personal contacts gained momentum. On the initiative of art historian Štech, Loos met Bohumil Markalous, the editor of Lidové noviny daily, who had returned from Paris in 1923 and began lecturing art history at the Czech University of Technology in Brno in the academic year 1923/1924. Štech recommended Loos as a collaborator for the newly founded magazine Bytová kultura (Housing Culture, 1924/1925) which Markalous began publishing in 1924 together with Jan Vaněk, then the director of the U. P. závody furniture company: “‘Markalous enthusiastically accepted my suggestion. That was how the unsteady Loos returned to the Czech environment.’”
In Brno, thanks to Bohumil Markalous, Loos contacted his later collaborator, the Prague architect Karel Lhota. From October 1923 to January 1925, Lhota held the position of designer at the Institute for Utilitarian Civil Engineering in Brno; he published in the magazine Bytová kultura and was among the regular participants in Markalous’ lectures. In February 1925, Lhota moved to Pilsen, where he obtained a position as a teacher at the State Technical School and was involved in several of Loos’ commissions. These were adaptations of the apartments of the Hirsch family (1927–1930), the Brummel family (1927–1929) and the Beck family (1928). In Prague, he later collaborated with Loos on the projects the Villa Müller (1928–1930), the interior design of Lumír Kapsa’s villa (1930) and the plans of Winternitz Villa (1931–1933).
In 1924, Jan Víšek, another graduate of the Prague University of Architecture and Civil Engineering, moved to Brno. Like Lhota, he also accepted a job in the office for the construction of Masaryk University, where the architect Jaroslav Grunt also worked. Grunt met Loos through Jan Vaněk, for whom he designed furniture, and in 1924 Grunt and Víšek visited Loos in Vienna. Soon after his arrival in Brno, Jan Víšek initiated the establishment of the Brno branch of the Prague Club of Architects; at the beginning of the following year the Club organised Loos’ public lectures in Brno and Prague. “Loos's reputation was flourishing in Brno even before the establishment of [this] branch,” says Karel Honzík in his memoirs. Other members of the young generation of Brno architects who were meeting Adolf Loos in Brno and Vienna included Ernst Wiesner, Bohuslav Fuchs, Otto Eisler, Jindřich Kumpošt, Karel Kotas, Bohumil Tureček and probably more. The Pilsener Pub on Jakubské Square was just one of the places where these meetings took place. Markalous mentioned in his memoirs that they would “sit” on Koliště Street as well. According to Jaroslav Grunt’s memoirs, when in Brno, Loos would stay at the Grand Hotel opposite the railway station, where the young architects would see him off before he left.
Loos’ critical views and theoretical premises that he preached at coffee tables, in public lectures and on the pages of the period press, as well as the construction principles he applied, soon found fertile ground in Brno and began to resonate in the work of young architects – and it was not just the matter of suppressing ornament. The emphasis on the use of noble material and marble cladding in the work of Ernst Wiesner, who used the same cipollino cladding in the interior of the Brno crematorium (1925–1930) as Loos did a few years earlier in Bauer’s chateau, is just one example. The multi-level spatial design of the Kolbaba Café (1938) by Víšek and the Savoy Café (1928–1929) by Jindřich Kumpošt are quotes of Loos’ Raumplan, as well as the restaurant of the Avion Hotel (1926–1927) by Fuchs. Ernst Wiesner was even supposed to work with Loos on the project of Helena Rubinstein’s department store in Paris. Jaroslav Grunt liked to furnish interiors with long built-in sofas and chaises-longues typical of Loos, known as Knieschwimmer and manufactured by the S. B. S. company of Jan Vaněk. Together with Vaněk and Stanislav Kučera, they tried to build the so-called single-walled houses in Alešova Street in Brno (1925–1926), applying a construction system that Loos had patented in 1921. Finally, it should be mentioned that Jindřich Kumpošt designed a family house for Loos’ nephew Valtr in Masaryk District in Brno in 1928, although the house was never built.
JK