Atrium houses on Kohoutova and Klidná

D042

The atrium family houses on Kohoutova street, originally Královopolská way, form a closed block at the bottom of the slope known as Lozíbky. Their origin is connected with the construction of tower apartment blocks near the tram loop on the outskirts of Štefánikova čtvrt’, which were built in the 1960s. At that time, the land on which the houses on Kohoutova, Klidná, and Slezáková  stand today was bought by the municipal district from private owners of gardens on the lower part of the slope. The plot was originally intended for the construction of a primary school, which was never built due to lack of pupils. A nursery school and creche complex was built on a part of the site at the same time as the residential buildings, which were situated along the fringes of the plot. These family houses were built by the eventual owners as part of a social housing construction project.

 

In 1976, part of Kohoutova street was renamed and renumbered, and, between 1977 and 1978, the construction of the atrium houses began, based on a geometric plan. The author of this plan was the architect František Páleník, while the architect responsible for the initial design of the individual buildings was Zdeněk Ješek, head of the project department at the co-operative and owner of one of the atrium houses (Kohoutova 8). However, the marking out of the individual buildings on the geometric plan turned out to be flawed and the plan had to be modified. The houses were gradually built in the period between 1982 and 1983.

 

It was not possible to divide up the gently sloping land on which the eight family houses stand, in the form of a so-called ‘carpet’ development, evenly. Therefore, the new owners modified the project designs of their individual houses according to the constraints of their land. For example, the design of the smallest house (Kohoutova 16) was modified by the architects who owned it, the Zemáneks. The houses differ not only in ​​the size of built-up area, which needed to be under 150 square metres , a requirement for a low-interest housing loan at that time, but also in the size of the atriums, which substituted for a typical garden. Apart from the northernmost situated house (Klidná 6), which is U-shaped, all the houses have an L-shaped ground plan. Nevertheless, the proportions of the individual wings of the buildings are different, and therefore this is not a standard type of housing development characteristic for that period, such as, for example, the one on nearby Slezaková street.

 

The fact of the individual atrium houses being so close to each other gave rise to a variety of corners full of greenery and primarily to individual inner courtyards accessible directly from the buildings. These small, four-sided residential gardens are a pleasantly invigorating feature of this densely built-up residential area. The corner houses (Kohoutova 8 and 16) are the exception, as their atriums are open to the street on their southern and south-eastern sides. In addition to their atriums, all the houses have in common an open-plan living space and a garage, which is incorporated into the ground plan differently for the individual houses, due to the influence of the sloping terrain of each plot. For this reason, the two houses on the eastern side of Kohoutova street (10 and 12) are two-floor buildings with garages situated on the ground floor.

 

Today, the results of more recent renovations can be seen on some of the atrium houses, such as Kohoutova 12 and Klidná 2, in which the windows have been replaced and the facade insulated and painted a different colour. The appearance of the remaining houses, with their sober contrasting facades formed by hard white plaster, the dark wooden oak cladding of parapets, dark brown windows and door frames and ceramic brick skirting, is original and is a unifying architectural element for this block of atrium houses. 

ŠB

Name
Atrium houses on Kohoutova and Klidná

Date
1977 – 1983

Architects
Zdeněk Ješek, František Páleník

Trail
Černá Pole 1946–1989

Code
D042

Type
Residential house, villa

Address
Kohoutova 1514–1518/8–16, Klidná 1541–1546/2–6 , (Husovice), Brno, Sever

Public transport
Štefánikova čtvrť (BUS 53, 81)

GPS
49°13'00.0"N 16°37'59.2"E

Literature
Renata Vrabelová (ed.), Brno. Architektura / Architecture. 1945–1990, Brno 2009, p. 250

Sources
Ústní sdělení Ing. arch. Václava Zemánka, CSc. (majitele atriového rodinného domu, Kohoutova ulice v Brně), dne 8. 10. 2018.
Stavební odbor Městské části Brno-sever, archiv stavební dokumentace, ul. Kohoutova, projektová dokumentace k rodinným domům, po roce 1976.