About the site
Before 1918, the Czech population of Austrian Silesia had no opportunity to obtain agricultural education. The foundation of the Czechoslovak Republic therefore prompted the decision to establish a higher agricultural school in Opava. The new institution was founded in 1920, and although it initially operated in rented premises, teaching began in October that year. In 1923, the school leased a farmstead from the Teutonic Order on the south-western edge of the city, and at the initiative of the Ministry of Agriculture, a neighbouring site was selected for the construction of a permanent school building. The location, where the built-up area of the city still gives way to farmland despite ongoing development, lay in the early 1920s along what was then known in German as Verbindungsweg (Connecting Road), now Purkyňova Street, linking present-day Otická Street with Olomoucká Street.
The choice of site reflected the city’s expansion since the late 19th century, when Opava began to extend south-westwards from the historic core along newly planned parallel streets – Olomoucká, Englišova, and Otická. The building programme was prepared by the school’s director and professor, František Drahný. The Ministry of Agriculture commissioned design studies from Jaroslav Stockar-Bernkopf and from the Plzeň-based architect Hanuš Zápal (1885–1964). The Ministry ultimately selected Zápal’s design, perhaps in part because, as the architect himself noted, it drew on models of Swiss school buildings. Construction began in June 1925, and the school was ceremonially opened on 6 March 1927, the eve of the birthday of Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk.
The two-storey, T-plan school building, set within a generous site later landscaped as parkland, was part of a programme to improve agricultural education and to strengthen Czech influence in predominantly German Opava and its rural hinterland. The building faces the termination of what is now Englišova Street. Its symmetrically composed mass consists of a nine-bay main wing with a central three-bay portico, dominated by a plain entablature bearing the national emblem.
Zápal divided the building into four sections, arranging the main wing in symmetrical composition based on classical principles, while treating each section with a degree of individual variation. The façade of the main wing is articulated into three horizontal zones: a stone-clad plinth, the main wall surface of the ground and first floors, and a simple crowning cornice with attic. The ground floor is horizontally divided by continuous string-courses at sill and lintel level, while the smooth surface of the upper floor is framed by stucco pilaster strips and rectangular parapet panels. The recessed side wings feature similar treatments with minor variations, all surmounted by hipped roofs clad in clay tiles.
At the junction of the main wing’s internal corridors, a hall at each floor level leads to the main double-flight staircase. This spatial arrangement reflects the temporary concern for modern teaching
methods and the reform of both classroom instruction and pupils’ use of breaks – consistent with Zápal’s stated inspiration from Swiss schools, as noted in Petr Domanický’s monograph on the architect. The southern wing contains the headmaster’s office and originally housed the headmaster’s and staff flats; the northern wing accommodates the gymnasium and assembly hall.
The building combines brick loadbearing walls with reinforced-concrete elements, including beam-and-slab ceilings over the principal spaces. It is a representative example of modern classicism, a style that became prominent in the 1920s in the planning and construction of new institutions for the young Czechoslovak Republic, and one characteristic of Zápal’s work of the period – as also seen in the Higher Agricultural School in Plzeň (1924) and other educational buildings, mainly in Plzeň and south-west Bohemia.
Zápal’s Opava school has survived in an intact state, including some of its original interior fittings. Within the broader context of Czech Silesia and northern Moravia, it remains a rare and well-preserved example of school architecture from the First Czechoslovak Republic.
MSt
