Karel Falkovský and his wife Anna’s apartment building was built as part of the development of a new residential neighbourhood at the western foot of Špilberk Hill in the early 20th century. In a very short period, a row of apartment buildings was built on Úvoz Street (then Erzherzog-Rainer-Gasse), two of which were designed by the Brno developer František Falkovský. Falkovský built Úvoz 64a for his brother Karel and his wife Anna in 1908, two years after their marriage. Given that Karel Falkovský had been working as a civil engineer and municipal building officer since 1905, it is possible that he was also involved in the building’s design. Regarding its authorship, art historian Pavel Zatloukal has drawn attention to its considerable similarity with Jan Očka’s apartment building at Jezuitská 5/5a (B031), which in the past was attributed to either Vladimír Fischer or Josef Müller, but which today is considered the work of František Falkovský.
The five-storey building has a standard floor plan with two apartments on each floor. Its facade follows a traditional palace composition with two distinctive lateral polygonal oriels. The palace design was very popular in turn-of-the-century Brno and was based on the acclaimed Klein Palace (1847–1848) on náměstí Svobody by the Viennese architects Ludwig von Förster and Theophil von Hansen.
The main facade of the Falkovský building exhibits a number of interesting architectural elements, such as its two imposing rounded gables and the ornamental decoration embedded in the variously textured plaster, characterized by a strong emphasis on ‘woven’ motifs that almost literally exemplify the prominent German architect Gottfried Semper’s Bekleidungstheorie – the notion that a building’s facades are its ‘clothing’. This apartment building, which was never occupied by its owners, has retained its original character and is a fine example in this neighbourhood of a traditional apartment building with an artistically well-elaborated facade.
Šárka Bahounková
