The architect Maxim Johann Monter spent just six years in Brno, during his time as a professor at the city’s German technical school. Nevertheless, in this short period he had a profound impact on the architecture of the city centre. His work here exhibits a smooth progression of stylistic forms from historicism and Art Nouveau towards his own distinctive style with a clearly modernist accent.
Like many of Monter’s projects in Brno, this building for the Jaumann family was built on land that had been cleared for redevelopment. It was one of two similarly designed apartment buildings, connected by courtyard wings, that Imperial Councillor Wilhelm Jaumann commissioned on back-to-back parcels (one on Kobližná, the other on Dvořákova). To this end, he hired Monter to draft the plans and Adolf Bacher, who regularly collaborated with Monter, to undertake the construction. The buildings – at Kobližná 13 (then Krapfengasse 19) and Dvořákova 8 (Wiesergasse 10) – were completed in 1908–1909 and became the property of Wilhelm’s wife Fanny (sometimes spelled Fanni), in whose hands they remained until the late 1920s.
In the context of Monter’s work in Brno, Fanny Jaumann’s apartment buildings can be ranked alongside his later works characterized by a more modernist expression. While the facade of the building on Kobližná was altered by later interventions, the one on Dvořákova has been preserved in its original form, both inside and out. Monter’s design was published in the architectural journal Wiener Bauindustrie-Zeitung, where it received high praise: ‘The architect’s primary focus has been the creation of cosy apartments. This was accomplished by the practical division of the floor plan and the addition of oriels, loggias or balconies in all the apartments, necessary elements for tenants living in the city centre. These motifs lend the building’s external arrangement a picturesque aspect that is strongly accentuated by the use of rough plaster with marble rubble, blue-grey Meissen tiles and floral apron walls. The cast concrete ornamentation common for apartment buildings was not used. The walls in the vestibule have been clad in the same tiles as on the facade. A very solid job was done by the Brno builder Adolf Bacher.’
The distinctly vertical, asymmetrically composed four-bay facade makes use of rectangular oriels on the lateral bays, along with an ensemble of wooden and masonry balconies and loggias done in a restrained geometric style without the lavish decoration of Monter’s earlier buildings. The picturesque interplay of these facade elements is complemented by the use of a high stepped gable. By simplifying the traditional formal apparatus, Monter achieved a modernist expression that was radical for the time, with the facade reduced almost entirely to austere geometric shapes and openings. Decorative elements were kept to a minimum, and ornamentation was almost completely suppressed; only the recessed apron walls beneath the third-floor windows and the modernist openwork balustrades on the loggia and balcony on the right-most window bay provide any decorative detail. By contrast, the sky-blue ceramic tiles add a visual appeal to the otherwise sober whole. Greenery was an important part of the architectural plan as well: Monter’s design shows windowsills with flowering plants, and a period photograph of the completed building indicates that they were indeed planted according to his wishes.
The architecturally valuable Jaumann apartment building has been partly preserved on the ground floor and in its interiors. In the hall leading to the staircase with ornamental wrought-iron railings, the period floor tiles and stucco decoration remain, but the original blue wall tiles have not survived. Some of the wrought-iron elements and small details are identical to other apartment buildings by the creative duo of the architect Monter and the builder Bacher. The building forms a remarkable ensemble with Eugen Škarda’s neighbouring building designed by Dušan Jurkovič. Through these buildings on Dvořákova Street, we can thus see how two leading architects from Brno’s two linguistic communities (one German, the other Czech) approached the task of designing a modern apartment building.
Pavla Cenková
