Bohdan Pantoflíček’s commercial and apartment building with the living room of Olga and Hugo Naschauer’s flat
1937 / 1938

The investor of the new five-storey commercial and apartment building at No. 4 Kramářovy sady (today Sady Pětatřicátníků) was the director of the munitions division of Škoda Works (Škodovy závody), Bohdan Pantoflíček. Antonín Špalek built the house, one of the few Functionalist buildings in the immediate vicinity, in 1937 on the site of the Adler family’s former house.

The austere, purist street frontage of the house is enlivened primarily by the colour contrast of ceramic tiles. While the surface of the facade set on the street line has red rectangular tiles, the projecting three-storey high middle section is clad overall in ochre tiles. The parterre also originally had narrow rectangular tiles. The centrally placed doorway to the house was flanked by the entrances to two shops with large display windows. The top of the projection, which has three regularly placed rows of large four-light windows, serves as a balcony for the apartments on the top floor. The upper section of the house is smoothly rendered. The functional arrangement of the building corresponds to the custom of the time – apart from the shops on the ground floor, the courtyard section housed the janitor’s flat and the upper floors were reserved exclusively for living. On the first floor was a large four-room apartment with a maid’s room, bathrooms and a balcony, and each of the higher floors had a pair of two-room flats. Apart from the separate attic spaces, the loft space also held a common laundry room and a terrace. 

Hugo Naschauer and his wife Olga began renting the aforementioned large first-floor flat in 1938 and brought there the furnishings of the living room from their former apartment in No. 20 Husova Street, which had been designed for them by Adolf Loos (C2–1518). Loos’ collaborator Norbert Krieger assisted in the adaptation of the interior and it was most likely he who was the designer of the other unconventional furnishings of the apartment. The couple only used the apartment briefly, however, because in 1939 they emigrated to Great Britain. All of the factories owned by the Naschauers were subsequently gradually closed down. After WWII, Hugo Naschauer attempted to re-establish the business, but it was soon after nationalised by the communist regime. The interior of their flat has not been preserved. 

The family of Bohdan Pantoflíček owned the house in Sady Pětatřicátníků up to its nationalisation in 1953. In 1962, the Agricultural Cooperative (Zahradnické družstvo) established a flower shop in the building, replaced the display windows and also carried out minor alterations in the interior. Apart from the alterations to the parterre, however, the rest of the street-side facade was spared further intervention and remains to this day in its original form.  

LV

Investor

Literature

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