Božena Stanislavová-Táborská’s apartment building
1927–1928

The main axis of development of Říšské Předměstí (Imperial Suburb), today Jižní Předměstí (South Suburb), from the last decades of the 19th century on was Ferdinand Avenue, today Klatovská. During the time of the First Republic, this representative city boulevard with a line of trees on each side was among the most desirable locations in Pilsen. One of the grand buildings that gave the part of the avenue near Dobrovského Street its showcase character was the apartment house at No. 87. The four-storey building that arose in 1928 on a vacant lot on the eastern side of the street was erected by the Pilsen builder Václav Pašek for Božena Stanislavová-Táborská. Other houses in this block were built in the first decade and early second decade of the 20th century and we find among them, therefore, quality examples of Art Nouveau and early Modernist architecture as well as interesting example of application of the morphology of Decorativism and the sober National Style (Nos. 75 and 77, for example).

Like her father and mother, Božena Stanislavová did business in the clothing industry. Her parents, Václav Stanislav and his wife Anna, owners of the two neighbouring Art Nouveau houses Nos. 83 and 85 (the former of which was built by Karel Bubla), owned a clothing mill in Berlin prior to the war. According to the original 1927 plans, therefore, the new house for their daughter was to have a building attached in the courtyard with garages, offices and upstairs dressmaking shops. The building to a large extent also encroaches on the parents' property. Due to the impact of the worldwide economic depression, however, Václav Pašek’s firm ultimately built only part of the planned garage building. Božena Stanislavová (since her marriage in 1929 named Táborská) had the planning permission for the garment workshops extended on financial grounds up to 1938, when the authorities refused her application for a further extension.

In contrast with the neighbouring houses, the sculptured, yet austere facade of the building was distinguished by a modern absence of ornament. The author of the plans emphasised the smooth surface of the symmetrically conceived facade in the middle with a shallow avant-corps above the ground floor, from which projects a pair of bays with characteristic bay windows and which is crowned by a massive cornice. The facade sections on each side of the pair of bays are broken by deep, open loggias on each floor (and terraces on the uppermost floor) with steel tube railings underlining the Modernist look of the building. The visual dominance of the middle section of the building is enhanced by a segmented superstructure, similar in form to a trough vault, set on the flat roof of the bays and clad in copper sheeting.

The basement of the apartment house contained cellars, a laundry room and technical facilities as well as a small one-room caretaker's flat. An entrance lobby with a high ceiling, illuminated by an oval skylight, gave access from the main street to the ground floor, while vehicle access to the courtyard was through a passageway on the side. On the ground floor was a smallish one-room flat and a spacious three-room apartment with kitchen, hallway, bathroom, toilet and maid's room. The author of the plans also designed similar large apartments for the upper floors. In the loft space with its tower-like superstructure was a fully equipped one-room flat with an elongated terrace facing Klatovská Avenue.

At the present time, the building is in excellent condition. Even the recent contentious replacement of the originally subtly articulated wooden windows with plastic ones has not greatly diminished its splendour.

AK – PK
 

Investor

Sources