Civic amenities centre

The designers of Juliánov Housing Estate paid particular attention to the space of the shopping centre on Juliánovské náměstí. The building consists of three blocks. The first block had a grocery store on the ground floor and on the floor above it there was a restaurant with a terrace overlooking the paddling pool with a view of the Cathedral of St. Peter and Paul and Špilberk Castle in the distance. In the second block, there was a chemist’s and a number of services (e.g., a shoe repair shop, laundry collection, a hairdressing salon, etc.). The third block had a maintenance workshop on the ground floor, and on the first floor, there were doctors’ surgeries. This was connected by a walkway to the tower block with apartments. In front of the civic amenities centre, there was a sculpture by Jiří Marek entitled Pramen [Spring] with a fountain, a public paddling pool, and some trees on the site that the architects decided to retain.

The subtle use of the fully grown trees of the former cemetery in combination with the water feature helped create good climatic and other conditions, particularly in the summer, for the ‘habitability of the space’ as defined by the architect Karel Honzík. With this term he was expressing the broader urban planning or landscape relations of the space inhabited by man. The architect later described the concept as follows: ‘The eventual design of the whole park area took several years to develop. The idea was to give it as much humanistic content as possible. In this sense, the large irregularly shaped paddling pool, which is 50 metres long and 15 to 90 centimetres deep, gives it a special kind of atmosphere. It is equipped with filters and sanitary facilities and is run on a free admission basis by the Technical and Garden Authority of the City of Brno. In the summer months, it perfectly serves its purpose and children are drawn to it from a wide area.’ (Pavel Krchňák, Sídliště Juliánov, Architektura ČSSR 27, 1968, pp. 357–358.) The paddling pool also served as a water tank in case of fire (and is now a private swimming pool). Witnesses recall that, in winter, it was transformed into a paradise for ice-skating.

 

JCH