About the site
With the arrival of state employees of Czech nationality in Opava after 1918, the need to address the housing crisis grew. At that time, construction activity focused on Kylešovský Hill, where land was made available from the parcelled Liechtenstein estate, expropriated under the 1919 Land Reform Act. Among the first buildings erected here were residential houses for state employees, designed with the participation of architects from the Department of Civil Engineering of the Provincial Building Authority – Johann Kalitta and Karl Schmelzer.
The first to be built were houses for officials of the Provincial Government on Boženy Němcové Street. A group of six three-storey houses with hipped roofs was arranged into two separate blocks of S-shaped ground plan, each conceived differently. Johann Kalitta designed them in the spirit of traditionalist architecture with elements of Neo-Biedermeier, characterized by relatively plain façades with triangular gables, polygonal oriels, shallow projections and portals accentuated by semicircular arches. The modest decoration, in the form of recessed convex–concave frames, was limited to window aprons and parapets. Each building contained on every floor two two- or three-room flats with two- and three-tract layouts organized around a central staircase. Living rooms were oriented towards the street, while the service areas – kitchens with pantries, bathrooms, maid’s rooms and enclosed balconies – faced the courtyard.
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