Bohumila Krotschiková’s apartment and commercial building
1929–1930

The second last building in the street frontage of the eastern part of Americká Avenue is Bohumila Krotschiková’s commercial and apartment building. The plans for the flat-roofed five-storey building were drafted in 1929 by the engineer Jaroslav Kostka and the architect Karel Mastný, Pilsen builders, who also managed and supervised the construction work. The authors of the plans created a total of three variations on the main facade. The municipal technical committee ultimately approved a design that in terms of both height and facade arrangement most closely matched Doctor Rudolf Wild’s planned next door building, to which the new building therefore bears a marked resemblance at first sight.

The house encompasses the usual combination of several functions. The second basement level contained not only the tenants cellar spaces, but also a photographic laboratory with a darkroom. The first basement level held in the front part of the house the storage spaces of the individual shops, a small one-room flat and the photographic studio of Jan Lukeš and its waiting room. The photographic studio was accessible from the ground floor, which was otherwise given over entirely to shops. The upper floors had spacious two-room and three-room flats, each with a kitchen, bathroom and toilet, maid’s room and veranda facing the courtyard.

The austere Purist facade with a glazed commercial parterre is dominated by a three-storey high oriel, punctuated in the centre by three narrow loggias, with adjacent bands of tall ribbon windows continuing onto the sides of the oriel.

AK
 

Investor

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