About the site
One of Harald Bauer’s first commissions in Opava after establishing himself as an independent architect was the two-storey apartment building designed for Erich and Fritz Käufler at Dolní schody Street 8. The design is characterized by cubic tripartite massing, gently sloping hipped roofs, a roof terrace, and a textured façade that combines references to romanticizing traditionalism with elements of emerging Neue Sachlichkeit (New Objectivity).
The house was part of a wave of construction at the turn of the 1920s and 1930s, when members of the upper middle class had their homes built in the vicinity of the railway station, continuing the mixed development pattern established at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries. On the sloping terrain facing Opava Východ railway station, a number of new detached houses reflected contemporary ideas of individual housing, blending traditional romantic motifs with modern architecture. The area’s orientation towards the railway station embraced the concept of the modern house with a flat roof or roof terrace and unadorned façades. The house opposite, built for Josef and Josefina Vilner (Dolní schody Street 5), also features flat roofs and a terrace.
The Käufler residence has a three-bay street façade articulated by vertical windows in moulded surrounds. The south-facing entrance front is marked by a shallow projecting stairwell bay at its centre, forming the tallest part of the building. The flanking sections are lower, although the garden elevation is raised by an attic storey with circular windows. The textured façade is refined with smooth-render details, including a narrow crowning cornice and rounded window surrounds. While the street-facing windows retain a traditional vertical proportion – with the stairwell bay topped by a tall, barrel-arched light – the living-room windows on the garden side adopt a horizontal emphasis, with circular windows in the attic level introducing a nautical motif. This interplay reflects the architect’s oscillation between the romanticism and New Objectivity. The garden façade features a bay window supported by prismatic pillars.
The plan is organized into three sections: the central section accommodates, on the south side, the circulation core with a double-flight stair leading to the upper floor and roof terrace, and on the north side the kitchens. Flats on both the ground and first floors were arranged around a central entrance hall, with two rooms occupying the lateral sections of the plan. The house represents a transitional design, balancing romanticizing traditionalism with the modern outlook of New Objectivity. The present-day fence and certain alterations to the building fabric, such as changes to the plinth, have introduced intrusive elements into the original composition.
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