Not far from the Reissig Villa (B074), its architect Leopold Bauer designed another villa just a few years later. Also located on Hlinky Street (Schreibwaldstrasse), it was built for the textile industrialist Hugo Hecht (1872–?), who had been the sole owner of the David Hecht company, a manufacturer of woollen and fashion goods, since 1901, following the death of his father. In 1902 Hugo Hecht married Bernardine Strakosch (1882–?), who hailed from a large family of industrialists in the wool and sugar industries. The two families’ factories on the banks of the Svitava mill-race canal were eventually merged to form one large textile factory. Hugo Hecht purchased the land for the villa on ‘Bauer’s Ramp’ in 1907 and applied for a building permit in 1909. Starting that year, his address in the residential register was listed as V Hlinkách 142b. By 1910, the new build with three flats was already registered in the Municipal Bulletin of the Provincial Capital of Brno.
The rectangular, detached two-storey house with a residential attic was designed as a longitudinal double-pile building with a single-storey service wing built on an L-shaped footprint. Opposite this wing is a shorter, narrow rounded wing consisting of a covered veranda fronted by a small rectangular terrace. The courtyard elevation between the veranda/terrace on one side and the service wing on the other is accentuated by a pair of niches adjoining the main stair hall. The symmetrically composed main elevation is dominated by a terrace with two pairs of Tuscan columns and a protruding T-shaped staircase. On the floor above the terrace is a balcony with a metal railing decorated by a geometric motif. A distinctive characteristic of the building is the use of rounded facade elements (the terrace with balcony, the left corner, the veranda and balcony, the niches of the stair hall). Rounded elements are also present on the windows of the courtyard elevation and the entrance gate with decorative metalwork that sits in the stone wall with wooden fencing along Hlinky Street. The entrance to the villa is situated in a carriageway between the main building and the service wing, whose western side is fronted by an arcade with five broad arches. A small anteroom inside the main entrance opens onto a double-flight service staircase and a rectangular hall with two spacious rounded niches. In one of the niches is a fireplace, and in the other a wooden staircase leads to the gallery on the first floor. The walls and ceiling of the hall are clad in wood, and the windows in the niches are made of stained glass with stylized ornamentation. The ceilings of the living spaces on the ground floor have stucco decoration. From the anteroom, one could access a room with a rounded corner, and the hall led to a dining and living room and a study adjoining the veranda and terrace. Upstairs and in the attic were rooms for family members and guests. The kitchen and service facilities were in the basement. The courtyard wing served as living quarters for the caretaker and coachman, with an adjoining carriage house and stable.
Bauer’s interior design for the Hecht Villa is based on the ‘English house’, as evidenced by the stair hall with fireplace and niches. His exterior design, however, has a Neo-Classical character, especially on the main elevation. The rear elevation feels relatively austere and, thanks to the tall fireplace chimney, almost industrial. The unplastered light-grey ‘limestone’ brick facades are particularly impressive. Such bricks were one example of the new materials and technologies that, under the influence of the Dutch architect H. P. Berlage, had come into more widespread use after about 1900. Bauer used them again in 1907 on his own house in Vienna-Hietzing, which the Hechts visited and admired. In fact, the entrance gate in the Hecht Villa’s property wall is identical to the gate at Bauer’s villa in Vienna. On the main street-facing elevation, the original plans envisioned a gable with stucco decoration (similar to the Halbmayer Villa in Vienna-Grinzing), plus geometric figures in the brick facade. In the end, however, Bauer opted for a more ascetic solution. In a book published to mark Bauer’s sixtieth birthday, Hugo Hecht wrote: ‘Despite the facade’s simplicity (there was no ornamentation), the house had excellent forms; the living and social spaces were organically connected with the housework areas, (…) it has been described as a great cultural achievement. (…) I have lived in this house for nearly twenty-two years and in this long time not a single repair has been necessary. The house has always been an oasis of well-being and refreshment for me and a constant source of joy and delight.’ As with the Reissig Villa, construction was performed by the Brno firm of the builder Adolf Bacher. The reinforced concrete and stonework, including artistic elements, were done by Ed. Ast & Co.; the stuccowork was done by Adolf Köhrer of Opava. The carpentry and metalwork was supplied by Brno’s Brüder Maschek company, and the glass artwork was by Karl Geyling’s Erben company from Vienna. The electrical wiring and chandeliers were made by Siemens.
Hugo and Bernadine Hecht apparently left for Belgium with their son Heinz (born 1903) before the Second World War, and their villa was later made the headquarters of the German police command. A note made in Hugo Hecht’s residency card in 1946 gives an address in Brussels and states that Heinz died on 9 July 1942 in Riga. After nationalization, the factories belonging to the Hecht and Strakosch families were merged into one state-owned undertaking (the Moravia-Silesia Woolen Factories, later Mosilana). Ownership of the villa passed to the state, and in 1949–1953 it housed the Workers’ School of Administration of the Ministry of the Interior. It later served as a residence for the Soviet and subsequently Russian consulate. Although the Czech Republic closed the consulate in March 2022 in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the building remains the property of the Russian Federation.
Dagmar Černoušková
