Konečného náměstí was built in the early 20th century on a vacant hill with a panoramic view of Brno. It was designed according to an 1883 master plan for a new residential district between Úvoz and Veveří Streets, preparations for which had begun in the 1870s. In the area bounded by the two streets as they gradually converge on the triangularly shaped square, large housing blocks were built around generously sized green areas. The square is dominated by two groups of apartment buildings built in 1895–1914 by Franz Pawlu. By the time construction began on this large-scale project for filling in this lucrative location, he was already an experienced and respected builder with his own long-established business (he had been running a construction company since 1870), for which he received various honours, including the title of Knight of St. Gregory.
The buildings were constructed over the course of nearly two decades in two separate phases. To this end, Pawlu had two new brickyards built in the immediate vicinity of the construction site, from where the material for this demanding project could be easily delivered. The first set of buildings was built in 1895–1911 on the southern side of the newly laid-out Konečného náměstí. These were later called Tivoli on the basis of the place where they stood. As they were being finished, in 1910 construction was begun on the second group of apartment buildings forming the street front on the north-western side of the square; they were completed in 1914.
The currently established name for this Art Nouveau residential complex, Tivoli, comes from an old place name for the locality, which – like the village of Tivoli near Rome – had previously been a popular destination for the people of Brno. Later, the name was applied to all of present-day Jiráskova Street. Today, this designation is used only for the aforementioned group of apartment buildings, which originally bore the name of their builder – Pawlu Hof.
Construction of this uniform housing complex, the first in the neighbourhood, was begun in 1895 with the building at Jiráskova 59. Adjacent to this, the three main buildings on Konečného náměstí (nos. 1, 2 and 3) were built in 1900–1902. The Jiráskova Street building, which consisted of 28 rental units with a total of 91 rooms, thus formed the south-eastern wing of the entire Art Nouveau complex. Franz Pawlu had a private apartment here as well. The complex’s long south-western wing, an identical apartment building at Čápkova Street 48 immediately adjoining the buildings on the square, was not built until later, in 1910–1911. The five buildings were conceived as one comprehensive, visually uniform half-block with a symmetrical triple-wing layout enfolding a spacious yard filled with greenery that is fully enclosed at the southern end by a separate, low-slung garden building.
The symmetrically designed street front of the Pawlu Hof’s core trio at Konečného náměstí 1–3 is topped by a basilica-style sheet-metal roof with a decorative railing on the roof ridge. The central five-bay avant-corps, crowned by a rectangular cupola with a window inside a small arched gable, rises one floor above the neighbouring segments. Rectangular turrets on the two corners again rise above the regular roof line. Their arched gables are flanked by pillar-like formations and topped by slender cupolas whose shapes transition smoothly into the florally decorated lanterns with finials in the shape of vases. Immediately above the opulent main portal of the central apartment building is a shallow balcony with a segmented window whose pediment depicts a pair of eagles clutching a cartouche with a relief portrait of Franz Pawlu. Above it, three more balconies rise up to the fourth floor, above which is a ‘suspended’ medallion with a female portrait relief, variations of which are used repeatedly along the entire cornice. Vertical columns of balconies can similarly be found on three storeys of the corner turrets, with sumptuous figural sculptures in niches on the gables above, and also on all three upper floors of the two lower segments of the main elevation, where on two floors they more closely resemble loggias characterized by a distinctly Art Nouveau style. The facade’s decoration is based on a rich and conceptually elaborate design that makes use of Art Nouveau floral ornamentation, complemented by numerous zoomorphic and anthropomorphic elements such as mascarons in the shape of lions’ heads, heads of the Medusa, wild men and girls with ornamentally rendered hair, medallions with female portraits decorated with an eagle-wing motif, and sculptures of sphinxes guarding the house on the corners of the central avant-corps. Identical decorative elements and architectural plans were used in a less grandiose form on the facades of the complex’s two wings on Jiráskova and Čápkova Streets.
In 1946, the buildings were confiscated from the builder’s heirs on the basis of the Beneš Decrees, and after nationalization they were entrusted to the housing fund administration. Long-term neglect resulted in significant damage to the facades, reliefs, sculptures, cornices and metal elements, which were repaired as part of an extensive renovation project in the 1990s, carried out under the expert supervision of architects Eva Buřilová and Iveta Černá and art restorer Václav Holoubek. The buildings, which still serve their original purpose in the form of municipally owned apartments, have remained in relatively stable condition since then and are today part of the new Brno Municipal Heritage Zone.
Šárka Bahounková
