Residential complex on Renneská

After an unproductive two-year period of construction at the beginning of the 1950s, the new apartment buildings that were built in Brno began to follow the dictates of socialist realism style. The first complexes were built within the framework of the existing urban infrastructure and civic amenities, as was the case with the housing development on Renneská třída, which in its urban design and massing subtly blends in with the interwar development of small-apartment buildings by Bedřich Rozehnal.

At that time, there had already been a noticeable shift in urban design away from the functionalist arrangement of buildings in rows. For the eastern undeveloped part of the streets Renneská and Vsetínská, the architects Josef Luc, Josef Karel Říha, Vítězslav Unzeitig and Jaroslav Prokop designed a classicizing style block development with a shared courtyard. As was standard with buildings constructed during the first five-year plan, the utilitarian construction type T15 was used for those on Renneská street. They were mostly five-storey buildings with a hipped roof, limited decoration of the façade, rustication on the corners and socle, a crowning cornice and a signifier of the building. Czechoslovak architects embraced socialist realism in the 1950s in their own distinctive manner, displaying decorative simplicity and a playful use of colour. This contrasted with the monumental character of the residential blocks in cities with heavy industry, where almost all construction activity was concentrated shortly after the war.

In the 1990s, the whole housing development was revitalized, during which loft apartments were built into the T15 buildings. As part of an effort to ‘humanize’ housing developments, the facades of the buildings were painted in various distinctive colours, which detracted from the original overall unity and individuality of the complex.

 

LH