In the late 19th century, the new urban development of Veveří Street reached what is now Konečného náměstí. This favourable location with a view of the city centre was gradually bought up by the builder Franz Pawlu, who designed the area’s urban structure and, starting in 1900, built apartment buildings in a floral Art Nouveau and Neo-Baroque style on the newly demarcated square. In 1902, his nephew Josef Müller began working for him as a designer. Müller subsequently acquired two plots on Kotlářská Street directly adjoining the square, and in 1909 he built a double house on the site according to plans by Vladimír Fischer. Over the following years (1911–1914), he expanded these properties with the addition of garden houses, among other things. The top floors of these comfortable rental units had a beautiful view of the city centre and the future botanical garden of the Faculty of Science (at the time of construction, the site was home a social care institute).
Vladimír Fischer was one of Brno’s most prominent architects in the first half of the 20th century. His projects from the early part of the century are in a historicist style, influenced by his training in Prague and Vienna, but on Kotlářská he worked with a different stylistic vocabulary, dividing the double house strictly along its central axis using two wide avant-corps on the sides and a narrower one in the middle. The facades between them are broken up by the use of arcades spanning spacious loggias, while the pseudo-mansard on the top floor gives the impression of being an attic. In contrast to the richly decorated houses by Franz Pawlu, in his facades done in the style of late German modernism, Fischer used little ornamentation (essentially limiting himself to the relief of two boys at the top of the central avant-corps) or used it only as a stylized accessory such as the egg-and-dart moulding under the loggias and the ground-floor windows, which have been preserved only at no. 5. The modern apartments behind this architecturally articulated facade were accessed by a lift situated between two rows of balconies on the rear of the building. Fischer took a similar approach to his other projects from that time, such as the buildings on Merhautova and Smetanova Streets, although on Kotlářská he went the furthest in paring down the ornamentation. It is therefore not surprising that over the course of the 1920s he was gradually drawn towards the traditionalist form of Brno functionalism.
The double house’s builder and investor in one person, Antonín Müller, lived and worked at Kotlářská 5, where he had a lavishly yet also modernly furnished apartment. While he later sold the other building, no. 5 remained in the family’s possession until 1948, when it was confiscated. It was returned to the original owners after 1989. After restitution, the larger building at Kotlářská 3 spent several decades deteriorating. A thorough renovation project undertaken around 2020 partially restored it to its original condition but also changed its ground floor and converted the attic to housing.
Matěj Kruntorád
