About the site
The square was laid out in the 1880s as part of the expansion of block development along today’s Olomoucká Street towards the south-west, together with the construction of a new courthouse complex forming the its south-eastern frontage. The polyclinic completed the northern corner where Hany Kvapilové and Havlíčkova streets meet the square. Built for the District Sickness Fund, it is one of the most striking examples of the combination of modern classicism with rondocubism in Opava, also known as the “arc style” of the 1920s.
A design competition for the new medical facility was held in 1924, with the site chosen on what was then Wilson Square in the city’s south-western quarter. The winning entry, selected for execution, came from architect Jaroslav Stockar-Bernkopf (1890–1977), who specialized in the design of medical and educational facilities and often worked for health insurance funds. In nearby Ostrava during the interwar period he designed, among other projects, the headquarters of the Mining and Metallurgical Company (1928–1929) and, together with architect Karel Roštík, the District Social and Health Institute (1931–1933).
The three-winged building in Opava consists of a main corner wing with a six-bay frontage, articulated by a slightly projecting four-bay central risalit marked at ground-floor level by rusticated pilasters. These support an arcade above the entrance steps leading to the main doorway. On the upper floor, the risalit and adjoining bays are framed by lisenes that rhythmically emphasize the window axes. Above the cornice with mutules, the risalit is crowned by an attic with a triangular pediment containing a sandstone sculpture group by Josef Kubíček (1890–1972) depicting a father and mother with a small child. Inside, the main part of the building centres on a vestibule linking the three wings and facilitating circulation between them. The street façades are further enriched with circular motifs in the parapets of the first-floor windows.
The design combines modern classicism with elements of the “arc style” of the new republic, as evidenced by the use of circular and cylindrical motifs and rounded corbels of the entrance portico. The same influence can be discerned in the rounded linking wing along Hany Kvapilové Street. Kubíček’s sculptural group, showing a child standing between its parents – the mother kneeling on the child’s right, her drapery gathered over her left arm as she steadies the child, the father kneeling on its left holding a draped cloth the child grasps with its right hand – reflects the strain of social realism characteristic of part of Czech and Central European sculpture of the 1920s, frequently used to complement works in rondocubism or the arc style.
In this commission, Stockar-Bernkopf opted – perhaps in line with his own conservative views as well as that of the client and of Opava itself at the time – for a concept firmly rooted in modern
classicism, with other stylistic features serving mainly to enrich the composition. The building was also well known in Opava for another reason: in its basement, beneath the vestibule waiting room, was the Elektra cinema, which remained in operation until 2007.
MSt
