In the 1890s construction began on the ‘Association Neighbourhood’, the first neighbourhood of family houses in Černá Pole and the first of its kind in Brno. The project was initiated by the German Association for the Construction of Low-Cost Homes in Brno (Verein zur Erbauung billiger Wohnungen in Brünn), founded in 1886 with the aim of providing housing for low-income citizens of Brno. The association was headed by the mayor of Brno, and it enjoyed the support of some of the era’s most prominent industrialists, financiers and members of the middle class.
The association purchased land at favourable prices on a plateau above Lužánky Park in the then almost undeveloped Černá Pole area, and in the early 1890s it began building a development of family houses on the site. The chosen location was well-suited for members of the working class and low-income workers, as it was located in the immediate vicinity of the poor and overpopulated factory neighbourhood of Horní Cejl. With construction of the Association Neighbourhood, two ends of the social spectrum of early-20th-century society came together in one area: the first suburban villas of the Brno elite were built on the hill’s western slope in the 1860s, and not far from there, social housing of an almost rural character began to spring up after 1890.
The Association Neighbourhood consisted of three parallel streets, bisected by a connecting throughway. The first to be built up was Gutenbergova (today Muchova) in 1891, followed a little later by Goldhanova (Tomanova) in 1895, and finally by Meroresova (Lužova) and the perpendicular Gabelsbergerova (Durďákova) in 1905. From 1891 to 1912, the association built fifty houses with gardens in this area, chosen from among fourteen different building types. The first group of houses on Muchova Street consists of an ensemble of similarly designed small-unit homes (according to the association’s plans from the time, building types I–III), modest in size and décor, with fair-faced brick facades and wood in the gables. The later types from 1893–1901 also had fair-faced brick facades but boasted more decorative elements. The youngest buildings from 1904–1906 already had the character of intricately designed villas, with opulent Art Nouveau décor and generous floor plans. This evolution of building types shows that the association gradually abandoned the initial idea of building cheap housing for the poor and after 1900 adapted to the contemporary trend of large suburban villas with gardens, which were springing up elsewhere in Brno at the time.
Unfortunately, this unique development is not protected as a whole, nor are any of the individual houses. Some of the buildings have been demolished, while others, especially in recent years, have been altered by insensitive renovations, their character gradually disappearing underneath layers of modern alterations and insulation. Construction of the Association Neighbourhood was followed by the equally interesting pilot project of establishing allotment gardens known as Schrebergärten. In 1907, the nearby Zábrdovice cemetery was transformed into one of the first such garden colonies in Europe, which were named after the German physician Moritz Schreber (1808‒1861), who promoted the philosophy that adults and especially children should spend time in the fresh air.
Pavla Cenková
