This commanding villa, standing on elevated ground where Konecchlumského Street branches off Hradecká Street, is closely connected to the history of the Protestant church in Jičín. A chapel of the Evangelical Church of Czech Brethren forms an integral part of the building’s interior. In 1907, on the initiative of Bohuslav Mareček, successful entrepreneur and owner of the circular brickworks and steam mill, was founded a site of non-congregational worship (kazatelská stanice) for the Evangelical Church of the Augsburg Confession. This large and ever-growing community of believers began trying to establish their own chapel, since the existing premises in the Sokol Hall were no longer sufficient. Bohuslav Mareček proposed a solution whereby he would build, at his own expense, a chapel that would form part of his planned villa.
The application to construct a “single-family detached home” was submitted by Bohuslav Mareček in September of 1907, and just a year the chapel was officially opened and consecrated on 28 September, the name day of Wenceslaus.
Prague architect and building contractor Matěj Blecha had been commissioned to draw up plans. His career saw him gradually move away from historicist styles towards the ascendant Art Nouveau, and later also Modernism. Most of his buildings appeared in Prague and the surrounding area, so this commission for Bohuslav Mareček was one of very few projects realised outside the capital. At the time Mareček commissioned him, Matěj Blecha was already a proficient designer of tenement buildings and villas, nor was he a stranger to sacred buildings, having designed, among others, the Evangelical Church in Černilov and the Evangelical Church in Chvaletice in the Pardubice Region. Blecha’s plans for the Mareček villa were published in the architectural press. Construction work was entrusted by Mareček to the local contractors Josef Novotný and master carpenter Josef Pluhař.
Matěj Blecha designed a free-standing building (part of which had a cellar) with an L-shaped floorplan and outward-arching avant-corps. The building has a mansard roof, these days covered in sheet metal. In the south-west corner rises a turret crowned with a helmet. The chapel, functionally separated from the residential part of the building, is situated in the northern part of the house at a right angle to the main structure and similarly topped in a mansard roof. The chapel had a separate entrance facing west. The entrance to the home itself was situated in an avant-corps stairwell, on the northern frontage to the property. Connecting to a room on the south west corner was an open terrace, affording access to the garden.
The architect considered the western, town-facing aspect of the building to be preeminent. This was dominated by the chapel with its entrance portal. The gable with its cross was decorated with Art Nouveau ornamentation. Similar decorative work adorned the gable facing onto the garden. The chapel was principally illuminated by expansive windows, segmental at the top, set in the northern frontage.
In 1918 the Church of the Augsburg Confession merged with the other Lutheran and Reformed churches of the newly independent nation into the unified Evangelical Church of Czech Brethren, and the site of worship in Jičín grew to become an affiliate congregation (filiální stanice), in large part owing to PhDr. Oldřich Novotný, teacher at the State Real Grammar School for Girls in Jičín and son-in-law of the building’s commissioner, the industrialist Bohuslav Mareček. From 1947, the affiliate congregation became a fully-fledged congregation, and the villa with its chapel subsequently passed into the ownership of the church.
The house, property of the Evangelical Church of Czech Brethren since the mid-20th century, was and is used for church services. During modifications carried out in the late 1950s, the residential part of the building was connected to the chapel area. More recently, the attic was converted into living space, although the outward appearance of the building was not affected by these alterations. The building is a cultural monument.
- Jaroslav Mencl, Historická topografie města Jičína: dějiny Jičína (část II) , Jičín 1948–1949, p. 340-341; 347
-
Informační adresář města Jičína
- Vladimír Úlehla, Procházka jičínským hřbitovem , Jičín 2012, p. 94
- Miloslav Bařina, Historie a současnost podnikání na Jičínsku, Hořicku, Novopacku a Sobotecku , Žehušice 2002, p. 44
-
Architektonický obzor: zprávy Spolku architektů a inženýrů v král. Českém