In 1910–1911, the German builder Friedrich Wilhelm (‘Fritz’) Schmeer teamed up with the Czech architect Vladimír Fischer to build up the entire odd-numbered side of Smetanova Street between Botanická and Cihlářská Streets. Schmeer and Fischer jointly built more than three dozen apartment buildings throughout Brno, but this group is the most splendid of them all.
Of these five buildings, the Swedish House (Smetanova 41 / Botanická 4) is the most compact because of its corner location. It nevertheless boasts visually interesting elements such as a three-storey oriel and, on the side facing Botanická Street and Tyrš Park, a four-storey four-bay arcade loggia with half-timbered ceilings reminiscent of the courtyards of Renaissance chateaus or the architecture of the great spa towns (the ceiling of the top-most loggia is made of glass). On the building’s corner, a large area spanning two storeys was set aside for sgraffito by the painter Jano Köhler. Done in the style of a print from the Thirty Years’ War, it depicts the last Swedish attempt to storm Brno on 15 August 1645. The city’s successful defence was considered a miracle and is seen as the most important event in its history. The colourful sgraffito decoration that frames this scene includes portrait medallions of both sides’ main commanders and also depicts the Brno Palladium – an image of the Madonna of St. Thomas. Smaller ornamental sgraffito by the same artist decorates other parts of the facade, thus softening the building’s monumentality arising from the massive bossage on the corner and around the main entrance. The Swedish House’s unostentatious and straightforward character corresponding to late geometric Art Nouveau – the so-called ‘1910 style’ – is reflected in the variously textured plaster, the picturesque contours of the chimneys, the use of various playful details and the top floor’s modern visual design, including the black-and-white chequerboard pattern that brings to mind the Vienna Secession buildings of Josef Hoffmann.
Schmeer chose the house, which dominates the south-western corner of the block, as his residence and lived there until his death in 1941. He and his family occupied a 14-room apartment on the raised ground floor. Of his original wood-panelled parlour with stained-glass windows, the ceiling panelling has survived. His construction company was headquartered in the building as well, and his two daughters received upstairs apartments as a dowry. The house featured various modern comforts, including one of the first passenger lifts in Brno. The neighbouring building at Botanická 6 (built in 1935 according to plans by Otto Eisler) stands in what was originally the Swedish House’s garden, where one would have encountered two stone sculptures by Ferdinand Winkler of Vienna (who also did the bronze statue of Fortuna in the parlour).
The building’s opulent character is still evident in the common areas: the entrance hall is clad in stone and decorated with stuccowork, the staircase has Art Nouveau balustrades, and the landings are decorated with stained-glass windows. In 2016–2018, the building’s exterior was sensitively repaired and Köhler’s sgraffito restored to its original glory.
The neighbouring building at Smetanova 43 is decorated with a relief depicting the Madonna with child. Its four-bay facade is topped by a tall gable roof that transitions on either side into horizontal cornices. The outer window bays work with the contrast between protruding oriels on the first floor and recessed balconies hidden behind simple ‘frames’ on the third and fourth floors. Number 45 has a six-bay main elevation topped by a pair of Neo-Baroque gables. It, too, works with the contrast between oriels and balconies, this time on the horizontal level. In placing the rectangular oriels, Fischer deliberately ignored patterns of symmetry, with one oriel spanning the first to the third floor, while the other is present only on the third floor. The centrally placed entryway is flanked by pylons with reliefs of one wise and one foolish virgin from the Parable of the Ten Virgins (Matthew 25:1–13) on the level of the fanlight. Smetanova 47 has a five-bay facade with a centrally placed entryway, an oriel on the second and third floors and a roof gable. Here, too, the main portal features sculptural decoration: a naked, huddled boy and girl above the overhang and an eagle and a basilisk below. Except for the central axis, all the windows were set back on covered balconies, some of which have been enclosed in glass over the years. The corner building at no. 49 has nine window bays and two asymmetrical triple-bay oriels on each side, plus one more column of windows on the bevelled corner. All four oriels are decorated with figural reliefs of women’s heads.
In designing all five houses, Fischer and Schmeer applied elements of both historicist and modern architecture while deliberately and convincingly working with the contrast between the two. The facades make use of variously textured plaster, and each building is of a different colour: reddish-grey, ochre, green and greyish-green. With its grooved plaster facade on the ground floor and the use of metal (on the portal) and wood (on the balcony railings), no. 47 comes closest to geometric Art Nouveau, while the upper part of no. 43 possesses a certain modernist austerity. The authorship of the above-described, relatively diverse reliefs remains unresolved. Although it is known that the Vienna sculptor Ferdinand Winkler worked on the Swedish House, there is little evidence to ascribe these works to his hand.
Like the street-facing elevations, the facades on the buildings’ courtyard side were articulated into various fields and volumes as well, thus eliminating the need for light shafts. Much attention was also paid to decorating the corridors and stairways. In no. 47, for instance, the entrance hall features decorative stuccowork with Fritz Schmeer’s initials and the date of construction (1910), and the entrance areas to the apartments are decorated with stained glass.
Ale Filip
