Villa of Hynek Pášma and its adaptation to Dr Mulač Sanatorium
1905–1906 / 1926–1929

The imposing Art Nouveau villa of the Realschule Professor Hynek Pášma was built in the once peripheral part of the former Imperial (now Southern) Suburb in Pilsen in the years 1905–1906. The author of the project from 1905 was the twenty-nine-year-old architect František Roith, a student of Professor Otto Wagner at the prestigious Vienna Academy of Fine Arts. It was one of the first projects in Roith’s career; the architect designed houses and villas for wealthy customers at that time (in Prague these included Ořechovka, Černošice and Jíloviště), He returned to Pilsen, however, as an acclaimed author in the 1920s and 1930s with designs of the Tax Authority building (C1–1760) and the Prague Municipal Insurance Company (C1–356J). The construction of Pášma’s Art Nouveau villa, of which nowadays just a pair of square mosaic images remain to remind us of the original luxury artistic concept, was realised by the well-known Pilsen construction company Müller & Kapsa. The two-storey building with an elevated rounded corner, complemented by a small balcony, was fitted with a flat roof and a discreet facade with subtle Modernist decor in the spirit of the Wagnerian tradition; Roith’s project also involved the fencing of the plot in floral Art Nouveau style.

The ground floor of the corner building, conceived as a double-tract with the living rooms oriented towards both streets, had a purely representative function – the entrance hall with a half-turn staircase, a social lounge and a dining room with a veranda were located here; adjacent to it there was the kitchen and a small room for the maid. Besides three bedrooms, the first floor also housed Professor Pášma‘s study, located in the round corner, from where the above-mentioned balcony was entered. A guest room was situated in a small roof extension.

This architecturally unique building was fundamentally adapted and expanded by its new owner, Doctor Jan Mulač, between 1926 and 1929. The building was now to serve as a private surgical-obstetric clinic. One of the neighbours, the lawyer Mořic Eckstein, voiced the loudest protests against this plan, arguing, among other things, that the new building would disturb the villa character of the building permit. Led by the Pilsen architect Rudolf Pěchouček, interior modifications to the existing building were carried out along with a two-storey extension along Politických Vězňů Street. The resulting complex was given a new Brizolit facade (from the original cladding only two above-mentioned mosaics lining the rounded corners were preserved). In the basement, in addition to cellars and a storage area, there was also the caretaker's apartment and a room for nurses. The ground floor had the entrance vestibule, a surgery, an operating room, the radiology department and other facilities. The first floor was reserved especially for patients’ rooms and contained another operating room.

Further expansion of the prospering sanatorium – this time on a neighbouring plot on Dvořákova Street – took place soon in the early 1930s (see more C6–1207P).

AŠ
 

Investor

Literature

Sources