Buildings of the Jičín Civil Servants’ Housing Co-operative

The origins of housing co-operatives in the Czech Republic reach back to the mid-19^th century. Their proliferation was undoubtedly boosted by the Act on State Housing Stock in 1910. During this time, Jičín, too, had its fair share of building and housing cooperatives. One such was the Jičín Civil Servants’ Housing Co-operative (Úřednické bytové družstvo v Jičíně), registered as a limited liability company. The association had been considering putting up apartment buildings in the newly emerging Tyršova Street, and bought two lots accordingly. On these they erected two buildings – nos. 353 and 354. The co-operative believed in maximising the use of building land, and so from 1911 onward they agitated for three-storey buildings, much to the objections of the proprietors of the already standing neighbouring buildings, and municipal engineer Bedřich Pek. Construction was carried out by the local contractor Karel Vorel, working from plans of the architect and contractor Jaroslav Hortlík from Sobotka. Both buildings received their certificates of occupancy in 1914.

The terraced building was eventually realised in accordance with the regulatory requirements and was given a gable roof. The layout was quite traditional: the entrance hall and stairs were adjacent to the building’s southern wall, whereas the living area occupied the northern parts. All in all, three generously proportioned apartments occupied the building.

The street frontage at no. 353, with its three, tiered axes of windows, was originally divided on the first and second stories into regular squares. This geometric ornament was fortified in the design, however, by adding alternating areas of rough and smooth render. Surviving plans indicate that the façade on the ground floor was decorated with fine vertical scoring, which was realised as the plans dictated. Also retained was the basic partitioning of the rest of the façade’s surfaces with vertical strips. The originally proposed simple, geometric ornamentation was, however, swapped in favour of a richer, more decorative, purely Art Nouveau scored decor. Similarly adopted during construction was a more distinctive appearance for the band lying below the string course, separating the ground floor expanse from the remaining areas of the street frontage. Unlike in the original plans, these areas below the windows gave rise to geometric décor accentuated by a dark red base. Geometrically conceived ornaments have been made in the render, and in conjunction with the simple mass of the structural design, they imply the author’s inclination towards the architecturally modern, towards the style of decorativism, or conversely of their having stalled somewhere in the late Art Nouveau. The general impression of the street aspect is reinforced by the original windows and double doors at the entrance. Decoration on the facade of no. 354 links to that of its neighbour, and in some details further develops the concept. This building also still has its original entrance. Nonetheless, the overall impression is somewhat undermined by the new plastic windows, no matter that they echo the partitioning of the replaced originals.

House no. 353 was still in the ownership of the Jičín Civil Servants’ Housing Co-operative during the 1930s. In this period, one of the apartments was occupied by the then Grammar School headmaster Václav Trojan.