In the late 19th century, the village of Husovice, located on the right bank of the Svitava River adjacent to Zábrdovice, took on the character of a predominantly working-class suburb whose residents began to drift away from the Catholic Church. For this reason, in 1896 an association was founded with the goal building a new church in the area. Led by the priest and catechist František Venhuda, this association, known as Kostelní jednota (‘Church Union’) collected the necessary funds (mostly in the form of donations), chose a design by the architect Karel Hugo Kepka and organized the church’s construction by the Brno builders Karel Kučera and František Němeček in 1906–1910. The church was consecrated on 5 June 1910, and a local parish was established on 1 January 1911. In 1912, Husovice was elevated to city status, something which would not have been possible without its own church. As part of the village’s urbanization, around 1900, an orthogonal street grid was laid out north-west of Dukelská Avenue, with náměstí Republiky forming the stage on which the church would be built.
Kepka initially designed a Neo-Romanesque triple-aisle basilica on a Latin cross floor plan with a cupola above the intersection of the nave and transept and two towers on the main elevation. This design was most probably inspired by the Romanesque basilica of the Sacred Heart in Paray-le-Monial, since the local monastery had been the home of the nun and mystic Marguerite-Marie Alacoque, a promoter of devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus – to which the Husovice church is consecrated. Kepka nevertheless was forced to significantly rework his first design from 1900, and it was only his second, more modest design from 1906–1907 that was eventually realized. Inside, this pseudo-basilica (no windows in the central nave) with triforia above the lateral aisles terminates in a semi-cylindrical north-west facing presbytery flanked by a chapel dedicated to St. Anne on one side and a sacristy on the other. The church has five rectangular towers. The main tower, situated at the centre of the main elevation, rises to a height of 60 metres and is complemented by four 30-metre-high corner towers in a castle-like arrangement. The main entrance is via a recessed portal in the protruding aedicula. The facades make alternating use of stone masonry and variously textured plaster, along with geometric and zoomorphic stucco elements (based on the medieval bestiary Physiologus).
The building is of an eclectic style that includes stylistic references to medieval and Byzantine architecture and to Art Nouveau, Art Deco and even Cubist elements (the pyramidic-shaped towers). Historicist references prevail on the exterior, while the interior design is founded on the use of square grids in the manner of geometric Art Nouveau, with frame-like fields on the walls, here and there featuring ornamental elements. The triple-aisle interior and presbytery are vaulted, and the spaces below the triforia and by the presbytery have coffered ceilings; these are made of reinforced concrete held up by brick and stone masonry.
Problems with underground water during the laying of the foundations significantly increased construction costs. Consequently, the main altar designed by Valentin Hrdlička and the side altars and pews were not made until 1929–1933. They nevertheless conform to the original architecture. The only interior completed at the time of construction is the Chapel of St. Anne, in which the altar’s flat retable contains Theodor Hilšer’s 1910 painting St. Anne Teaching the Virgin Mary. The presbytery’s three circular windows with glass paintings fashioned after the work of Ferdinand Herčík were replaced in the late 1930s because they let in insufficient light. The church has been undergoing general repairs since 2002.
The local rectory at Vranovská 103 (B172), with a main elevation graced by two Neo-Baroque gables, was also built according to plans by Karel Hugo Kepka.
Aleš Filip
