Although its author remains unknown, the small terraced house on Minská Street, dated ‘1905’ on its facade, is a remarkable example of the incorporation of impulses from radical floral Art Nouveau architecture into an otherwise ordinary building.
The single-storey building boasts an elaborately decorated four-bay Art Nouveau facade whose wider, slightly projecting right-most bay is topped by a faintly arched gable flanked by pilasters. On the gable is a circular cartouche decorated with the year 1905, a Medusa’s head with snakes (a motif found on other Art Nouveau buildings in Brno as well) and a wide-open seashell. Below the gable is a broad, nearly square three-part window framed above and below by sunken rectangular fields. The fanlight above the original double-leaf door at the far left of the building is decorated with an Art Nouveau motif. The central part of the facade features two narrow rectangular windows, also framed by recessed rectangular fields, with a cordon ledge running above them. The most striking facade element is the Art Nouveau floral decoration in the form of long, leafy, spreading stems with large flowers resembling sunflowers that cover the area above the windows and below the roof overhang. The same stylized floral stems appear on the surviving front-yard fence. The driveway gate, by comparison, is decorated with geometric ornamentation.
The exterior is in its original state, and it would be advisable to preserve this piece of valuable architecture during any future renovation.
Pavla Cenková