This three-wing school building with four storeys above a semi-basement was built in 1910–1991 (groundbreaking 15 June 1910, capstone laid 2 December 1911) at Kounicová 16 (them Giskragasse 40) according to plans by Franz Holik, and around the same time as Holik’s German Folk and Burgher School at Křenová 21 (B178). With these buildings, Holik strove for harmony between structure and decoration, between monumentality and ornamentation, while placing the greatest emphasis on the segmentation of the roof sections. In a commentary on the secondary school’s construction written in 1912, he praised the choice of a location ‘in the middle of the school district’, by an orchard on the site of a former city cemetery, which allowed him to build a free-standing structure among old trees. He wrote that the picturesque silhouette of the building – designed with an articulated ground plan, sections of different heights and an imaginative roof composition consisting of both gabled and mansard roofs – was adapted to the surrounding landscape. The visual effect of the different roof designs is accentuated by the shape of the (original) skylights and by the four spires and three turrets on the roof ridges, built for ventilation purposes. The largest of these crowns the central avant-corps’s mansard roof, with a music hall illuminated by three windows in the Dutch gable on the street-facing side and an open terrace facing the courtyard. The rear elevation is also prominently articulated, in particular by the projecting body of the triple-flight staircase flanked by toilet blocks topped with triangular gables. Here, too, there is no lack of decoration.
Regarding the design of facades, Holik wrote that they have a ‘modern Baroque character’. This description applies more to the step-like arrangement of the various volumes, which rise from the margins towards the dominant central body, and less to the building’s decoration characterized by a synthesis of various styles (Baroque, Biedermeier, early Art Deco) in the spirit of the Central European ‘1910 style’. The stuccowork on the first-floor apron walls and underneath the crown cornice on the lateral wings resembles metal plates held in place by four screws; as such, it is a prime example of the sort of material transformation of décor described by Gottfried Semper. Dominant decorative elements possessing a clear symbolism are the cornucopias on the sides of the half-storey roof sections. As Brno’s chief city architect, Franz Holik liked to work with the city’s coat of arms, which here appears on the coloured cartouches below the main cornice and also underneath the sculptural vases on the plinths by the main portal. Somewhat surprisingly, it can also be found by the basement windows on the left side of the building. Other hallmarks of Holik’s work can be seen on the oak doors of the main entrance, whose glass panels are decorated with metal bars. The walls and ceiling of the main stair hall are covered with stucco frames and wreaths (allusions to the Biedermeier style). The two reinforced concrete pillars in the adjoining vestibule are clad in imitation green marble made using stucco lustro.
The school building has a double-pile layout with classrooms in the front section. Projecting towards the rear are two short, originally symmetrical, three-storey side wings (the basement level rises above ground due to the slope). A one-storey gymnasium with an equipment room is attached to the southern wing; the gym’s hall ends in an apse, as it was also used for religious services. In the 1950s, the northern wing was extended to approximately the length of the gymnasium. In the building’s central wing, an addition to the semi-basement extends into the large courtyard with mature trees, which originally occupied an area of about 3,400 m2 and was intended for summer exercising and games. The cost of construction, performed under the oversight of the municipal building authority (chief engineer Robert Bortsch), was 380,000 crowns.
After the German Higer Secondary School was closed, its longest tenant (1952–2013) was an electrotechnical trade school, after which the building was taken over by the Higher Vocational School of Health Professions. Many of the original structural and decorative elements have been well preserved.
Aleš Filip
