“[T]he house has so many features that experts shouldn’t need a statement by laymen or a bill from Loos, which cannot be found.”
Letter of Anna Martererová to František Kalivoda from 5 April 1970, Brno City Museum: Fonds of the Dept. of History of Architecture and Urban Planning.
The first known work of Adolf Loos in his hometown is the adaptation of Karel Herold’s private house on Jiráskova Avenue from 1910–1911. Art historian Zdeněk Kudělka mentions that after Loos’ return from the United States around 1896, he could have been involved in the preparation of a regulatory urban plan for the city of Brno, but this information has not been verified.
The one-storey terraced private house with a residential attic was built, together with other houses in the street, between 1888 and 1889. The construction on the newly built Tivoli-Gasse (Jiráskova Avenue since 1946) was designed by the Brno builders Heinrich Schmidt and Gottlob Alber. Before the house was purchased in 1910 by Karel Herold, the owner of the Brno factory for technical flax, jute and woollen goods, it had three other owners. Twelve years later, Herold sold it to Miss Anna Čiháková (which changed to Martererová after her marriage). The sale included the interior furnishing that Herold documented with a half-paid invoice from Adolf Loos – the remaining amount was to be paid to the architect by the new owner. Unfortunately, the documents proving this transaction were destroyed during World War II.
As can be seen to this day, Loos’ contribution consisted of the extension of a garden room, the selection of wallpaper for the dining room and living room, and of furnishing the hall with wood panelling and built-in furniture. The remaining furniture was taken away by Karel Herold in 1922. It is rather unclear how the architect and the client got acquainted. However, Herold’s business interests were closely related to the sugar industry, for which he supplied filter fabrics. The important South Moravian sugar factory owners included the Bauer family from Old Brno; they were co-owners of the sugar refinery in Hrušovany u Brna, where Adolf Loos designed the director’s villa in 1913. Herold ran the company with his father Josef, who previously had business activities with textile industrialist Leopold Himmelreich. In 1928, his son Paul and his wife Marietta had a representative house designed on Schodová Street in Brno by Loos’ students Karel Hoffmann and Felix Augenfeld.
Jana Kořínková
