Appellate Financial Directorate (Moravian Financial Administration)

B003

The large-scale clearance and redevelopment of Brno’s historical city centre led to some highly controversial demolitions, which attracted the attention of the era’s central heritage preservation authority, the Central Commission for the Study and Preservation of Historical Monuments, headed by the prominent art historian Max Dvořák. One such case was the Dietrichstein Palace near today’s Masarykova and Josefská Streets, demolished to make way for a new Neo-Baroque building.
One of Brno’s most architecturally valuable palaces, the Dietrichstein Palace had been built in 1738–1748 for a count from the renowned aristocratic family according to plans by the architect František Antonín Grimm. In 1773 it was acquired by the noble family of Salm-Reifferscheidt-Raitz, and in 1810 ownership of the building passed to the state. In the second half of the 19th century, the palace was the headquarters of the Moravian Financial Directorate. By the end of the century, however, the old palace no longer met the needs of a modern bureaucratic organization, and so in 1903 the Ministry of Finance agreed to renovate it at an estimated cost of 600,000 crowns. Despite this original intention to preserve at least part of the Baroque palace, ultimately the entire building was demolished in 1905. Through the conservation commission’s representative for Moravia, Ferdinand Hrach, Max Dvořák managed to preserve certain valuable stone and decorative wrought-iron elements from the palace so they could be reused in the new building.
The monumental new administrative building was constructed in 1905–1907 by the Brno builders Anton Jelinek and Martin Fleischhacker usings plans by an architect whose identity is not currently known, although he probably worked in the architecture office of the Ministry of the Interior in Vienna. In the end, construction costs came to twice the original budget. The resulting palace was essentially a modern multi-functional building, except that its emphatic Neo-Baroque appearance and the reuse of original elements from the old palace were conscious reminders of its Baroque predecessor.
The monumental block consists of two five-storey wings surrounding a pair of courtyards. On the Neo-Baroque facade, the architecturally impressive side facing Masarykova Street was accentuated by two corner projections topped with gables and rectangular pavilions. In accordance with Ferdinand Hrach’s wishes, the balcony above the Neo-Baroque portal incorporated the original Baroque railing by the artistic metalsmith Heinrich Gottfried Förster bearing the initials of the old palace’s original builder, Count Leopold von Dietrichstein. A similar balcony railing can also be found on the eastern elevation facing Josefská Street. The original portals decorated with vases by the Dietrichsteins’ court sculptor Ignaz Lengelacher were installed in the courtyards.
Along with the neighbouring former Franciscan monastery and the Church of Mary Magdalene, this monumental historicist palace, which still serves as the headquarters of the Appellate Financial Directorate, is an important architectural component of Brno’s old town. Although its creation is associated with the brutal destruction of Brno’s historical centre and the loss of important Baroque architecture, it nevertheless remains a well-elaborated building project whose architecturally impressive front and rear facades successfully hide the oversized volume of its administrative wings and its relatively recent origins, all while acting as a surprisingly positive contribution to the surrounding urban space.

Aleš Homola