The municipal district of Žabovřesky and the corresponding cadastral district have their historical predecessors in two historic villages. The village of Žabovřesky itself dates back to the 12th century, when it was established on the site of today’s Rosického náměstí, where echoes of the original village square and the surrounding network of narrow lanes can still be felt. To the east of Žabovřesky stood a farmstead and lands belonging to the Carthusian monastery in Královo Pole. The farmstead was abolished as part of Enlightenment-era reforms, and its land was parcelled out and given to peasant families. Subsequently, in 1788, the settlement of Vinohrádky was established on today’s Horova Street (roughly from Stránského Street to Burianovo náměstí). In the second half of the 19th century, the two villages grew together, thus laying the foundation for the large suburban village that was incorporated into the city of Brno in 1919. After the founding of Vinohrádky, the locals built a wooden bell tower near the centre of the settlement, approximately at the location of today’s Mozolky tram stop. In the first quarter of the 19th century, the tower was replaced by a small chapel dedicated to St. Wenceslas, but even this structure could not keep up with the growing number of residents. In the second half of the 19th century, new construction caused Vinohrádky to expand along the road to Brno, where today’s Burianovo náměstí (Komenského náměstí in 1907) was laid out at the crossing of two roads. In 1906, the Žabovřesky municipality (of which Vinohrádky was then a part) chose the area around the square as the site for a new and more spacious chapel.
The St. Wenceslas Chapel was designed and built by local builder Tomáš Němeček. Although little is known about him, he very probably was actively involved in the construction of the large number of historicist family houses then being built in Žabovřesky. The chapel, too, is an example of late historicist architecture influenced by traditional Renaissance and Baroque forms. The building has everything that a small country chapel needs: a small nave that can easily accommodate worshippers during services and a tower in front from which to hang the obligatory bell. In 2008–2009, the well-known Brno woodcarver Jiří Netík produced two new sculptures for the chapel; since undergoing major renovation in 2018, the chapel continues to serve its original purpose.
In addition to the chapel in Žabovřesky, Tomáš Němeček also built the Chapel of the Holy Family in Kohoutovice two years later – essentially a slightly modified copy of the Žabovřesky chapel with a low-slung addition. The two chapels are thus a perfect example of the era’s practice of architects essentially engaging in serial production by making minor changes to existing plans in response to their clients’ needs. In 1906, the same year that the St. Wenceslas Chapel was built, Němeček was the builder in charge of constructing the Church of the Sacred Heart in Husovice. Though the Husovice church possesses a distinctively Art Nouveau form, in his own designs he did not let the style influence him even in the slightest. The St. Wenceslas Chapel in Žabovřesky is a typical example of provincial rural architecture from the turn of the 20th century, characterized by a strict historicism and only minutely influenced by the new tendencies of the Art Nouveau style. Along with the older cast-iron cross (probably moved to the square at some later date) and a 1924 monument to the fallen of the First World War, the chapel on Burianovo náměstí is part of a set of monuments commemorating the independent municipality of Žabovřesky and the settlement of Vinohrádky, both of which were eventually absorbed into Greater Brno.
Matěj Kruntorád