This small terraced house, built in the style of folk-influenced Art Nouveau, was built for Josef Bartoň, a teacher and middle-school director in Brno. The plans were drawn up by the architect Dušan Jurkovič in 1903, and the house was completed by 1905 at the latest. Visually, the perfectly preserved house – a small gem set in a neighbourhood of single-storey terraced houses – is dominated by a turret-like structure with a gable roof and a covered wooden balcony, as well as the sparing yet distinctive arrangement of carved and painted folk ornaments, ceramic tiles and greenish-blue roofing.
The house has a four-bay street-facing elevation. The entrance, located at the far left and covered by a small overhang, has the original double-winged door, the lower part of which is decorated with a fan-shaped motif. This ornamental motif of a half-open fan is repeated elsewhere on the facade. The second window bay from the left, which protrudes ever so slightly from the facade, has a nearly square four-part window on the ground floor and a richly carved wooden balcony supported by corbels protruding from the first floor. The balcony’s wooden pillars hold up a distinctly protruding half-hipped roof that transitions into a triangular roof gable. The overhanging roof on the right side of the facade is held up by carved wooden corbels, under which is a decorative strip with wooden and ceramic elements inspired by folk ornamentation. The window and door frames are clad in shiny white tiles, and the window openings and the niche of the front door are delineated by a narrow line of rounded ceramics. Another visually striking artistic element is the greenish-blue colour of the roof tiles.
Josef Bartoň, a teacher at the middle school in Královo Pole (documented at least in 1895–1901) and subsequently the director of the girls’ middle school in Husovice (1910–1925), which was mainly attended by the daughters of poor factory workers, was a significant promoter of reformist pedagogical efforts in Moravia. In his concept of pedagogy, moral education formed the foundation for all teaching and permeated all subjects. Bartoň published several treatises, including Mravní výchova ve škole. Prvý pokus v theorii i v praksi (Moral Education in School: An Initial Attempt in Theory and Practice, 1921) and Ukázky výtvarných prací, které vznikaly z podnětů za vyučování (Examples of Artistic Works Created from Stimuli During Teaching, 1924). He was also the chairman of the Orphans’ Association for Husovice, founded in 1912.
The 1905 Brno directory lists Josef Bartoň as the owner and resident of the house at Jungmannova 46, but according to the recollections of the current owners’ family, he never actually moved into the new building. It had been intended as a wedding gift for his daughter, but in the end the wedding did not take place, and so Bartoň sold it to a dealer. It was subsequently purchased by Mr. and Mrs. Filip, and today the house is in the possession of their granddaughter Olga Machálková. The current owners have subjected the building to a heritage-sensitive renovation, and so it has remained exceptionally well preserved both inside and out.
Pavla Cenková
