The early 1930s witnessed an expansion of the activities of Freundschaft, an civic building association, which both funded and built several apartment buildings offering affordable housing. After financing the building of Ernst Wiesner's apartment building in Rybářská Street in 1931-32, the association addressed other Brno architects of Jewish origin – Heinrich Bloom and Zikmund Kerekes – with a request to design an apartment building to occupy a large plot in Merhautova Street.
Their design served as the basis for a vast six-storey complex consisting of three wings and a spacious yard accessible from Merhautova Street. The entire residential complex features the minimalistic aesthetics so typical for the work of these architects for the purpose of maximum cost effectiveness. The street facades, protected today under heritage regulations, are therefore very simple - the axes of standardized windows alternate with lines of smallish balconies. The horizontality and monumentality of the edifice are enhanced by the prominent cornice. The architects succeeded in lightening the rear facades looking out on the yard mainly by means of balconies that rhythmically alternate with window axes and vertical staircase windows.
Each floor of the residential parts housed two two-room apartments with a balcony overlooking the yard and a smaller flat with a residential kitchen and a balcony facing the street. The fact that the building was erected on slightly sloping ground enabled the incorporation of basement commercial spaces on the eastern side. The residential tracts are accessible from the yard, a spacious public park, as was typical of Viennese residential complexes ("Wiener-Hofhaus-Typus").
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