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Company Residence
Nadrazni and Vysoka streets come into being
It was construction of a railroad branch to Ferdinand´s Northern Railway from Svinov to the Silesian metropolis that contributed to the blossom of Opava, the Silesian capital. The line Svinov-Opava was put in service
17th December 1855
, with engines Neptun and Titan and 14 carriages. This act constituted a significant business development of the whole Opava region which was thereby given a railway connection with
Ostrava
industrial district.
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The North Railway Station, having been called the East Railway Station since 1919, prided itself on an imposing building with historical elements representing neo-renaissance style.
Herewith enabled feed of coal to the town through the railway transport contributed to the act in which Opava´s Portreeve Josef Alois Rossy on behalf of the Town Council signed a contract with certified engineer Alfons Dietz for gas-lighting of the town. Construction works of gasworks and gas distributing system were initiated but the first part of the gas-lighting was put in service only
3rd June 1859
, on Upper and Lower Squares and in adjacent streets leading from the railway station to the downtown. The gasworks, one of the oldest in our country, was built as a private enterprise in 1859 by Alfons Dietz, just opposite the building of the North Railway Station in Opava, based on the contract with the town. From 1956, the gasworks was connected to the
Ostrava
gas transmission line and the town gas production was thus stopped in it.
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Gustav Mauer, Jur.Dr. - Proprietor and a Notary, c.k.
In 1880, 113 notaries in total were established in
Moravia
and
Silesia
. Two of them acted in Opava, namely Franz Mohilla and Franz Schulz. The latter functioned as the president of the Silesian Notary Chamber that time. Yet he died
26th August 1880
and that was why the Silesian Notary Chamber put up a post for the notary of the judicial circuit Opava. The competition for the freed post was won by Dr Gustav Mauer, a notary from Zdar upon Sazava.
Gustav Mauer, the notary, was born in a family of Johan Mauer, the Chropyne bailiff, and his wife Ema. He studied at Kromeriz Gymnasium and then law at the Olomouc Univerzity. He received necessary law practice at the princely archiepiscopal court in Kromeriz. There, he started a family with Henrietta, his wife. He soon attained a position of a
Caesarean
Kingdom
(c.k.) notary in Zdar upon Sazava near Nove Mesto in
Morava
. In 1881 he moved to Opava where he exercised a notary office in a house in
Upper Square
.
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18th January 1882
, Gustav and Henrietta Mauer bought a piece of land, ground-plot No 87/20, from the Administration of Komarovska - Kylesovska streets, in order to build their family mansion at the corner of Nadrazni and Vysoka streets. Yet they considered the building plot too small for their building intension and therefore,
21st August 1882
, they bought additional land identified as ground-plot No 87/22. On these two merged ground-plots a new building was growing during one year. The original building documentation of this newly constructed building has not come down until now but the mansion bears a distinct builder´s style in the form of the central trapezoidal buttress which is so typical of mansions built by Hubert & Josef Kmentt.
The well-known construction company was found by Franz Kmentt who was born in Tesin in 1811 where his wife Josefa also came from. Upon finishing his professional education at a technical institute in
Vienna
he asked for granting a building license in Opava. His son Hubert Kmentt received professional education in
Prague
. He moved to Opava to hand over the father´s construction firm. The builder, along with his considerably older uncle Josef Kmentt from Tesin, the builder as well, changed his father´s firm to construction company Josef & Hubert Kmentt. The Kmentt´s company production was really admirable; we can meet their realizations even at present. Let´s mention monumental late classicism building of Silesian Provincial Government in Masaryk street (current Silesian Univerzity, 1878), the building of former Ingstav in Hradecka street (1879), the residence of General Health-Insurance Company in Tyrsova street (1879), the Hall of Justice in Olomoucka street (1882). Then the company specialized in building of big renting and tenement houses in Olomoucka, Sokolovska, Zborovska, Oticka, Ananska, Krnovska, Na Nive, Na Zameckem Okruhu streets, in Bezruc square and elsewhere. It is worth mentioning that a famous worldwide-known architect Josef Maria Olbrich served out in this company that afforded him opportunity of studying in
Vienna
.
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Other interesting information on the Mauer´s mansion can be read in the land register dated
9th May 1885
when the real property was credited with three shares of the Opava brewery company. The mansion thus became a privileged house with a brew right (which should be obviously understood in the medieval sense). The remaining four shares of the Opava brewery company were credited to the Mauer´s mansion based on a purchase agreement dated
14th November 1901
.
The owner´s family lived on the ground floor, in the most comfortable part of the mansion. In the basement and on the first floor tenants lived. The servants lived in the basement in which two maidservants, Magdalena Krejci from Josefov and Anna Smolarova from Bilovec stayed in 1891. The first floor was rented by MUDr. Leopold Fisher, a military surgeon, and countess Henriette Sylva-Tarroucca, lady of the Star Cross Order who was soon replaced by another noble tenant, unmarried lady Karolina Sedlicka from Choltice. The domestic staff was completed with a concierge´s family. In 1896 this post was taken by Stefan Koseny, overtaken by August Hübel in 1901 and by Filip Landsmann from Zdar upon Sazava chateau in 1911.
Loss of his wife and his sons´ army career forced the retired Gustav Mauer to sell his mansion in
6 Nadrazni street
, including his children´s proprietary shares, to mining entrepreneurs Zwierzinas.
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Mining Entrepreneurs - Zwierzina´s Family
It was also Josef Zwierzina who tried his fortune at coal mining in Polish (current Silesian)
Ostrava
from 1838. He was an owner of ironworks in
Marian
Valley
near
Olomouc
. He was born as a son of a copper-trader in Prelouc,
5th February 1775
. He mainly came into his property for his own business activity via two subsequent marriages, the first one with a daughter of a wealthy
Prague
tradesman, the second one with Francisca, a daughter of Kopecny, a brewer. He started his entrepreneurial activity in Chvaletice iron-ore mines in 1814, in which he put ironworks into operation in 1816. In 1823, he sold the ironworks, took the capital and moved to a valley of the Bystricka river in which he reconstructed a deserted smelting works to ironworks with a blast-furnace and an iron-mill (Ironworks & Wire-works in
Marian
Valley
). After selling them he concentrated his entrepreneurial activity on coal mining and coke-processing. He had some smaller working pits built in Silesian Ostrava. He died in Olomouc on 31st May 1858 handing down to his heirs a great property consisting of three big houses in Moravian Ostrava, a house in an Olomouc square, a piece of land of 1892m2 as a country estate Biskupice in Vranova Lhota and coal mines in Polish Ostrava.
In Zwierzina´s time, the living style in the mansion was the same as in Mauer´s time. At the time of census, Helena Zwierzinova and her mother lived there, along with their cook, Ms Maria Nitschova from Horni Domasov near Jesenik. In the flat on the first floor, Friedrich Weisshuhn´s family lodged. He was a descendant of Karl Weisshuhn and was a co-partner of famous Opava firm "Carl Weisshuhn & Söhne, Opava". The firm founded and owned, among others, a paper-mill in Zimrovice.
In a basement flat, Josef Spiller, a post-servant of the Directorate of Post & Telegraph, and his wife Emilie lived.
Based on a presidential decree the Zwierzina´s mansion was confiscated and national administration was imposed on it
10th November 1945, according to an assessment issued by Opava People´s Committee. Adolf Dostal was appointed a national administrator of the mansion. He lived in it and operated an affiliate of
Ostrava
firm "Banske podniky BAPO" there. The mansion was sufficiently spacious to enable sheltering a subsidiary of the
Czech Republic
´s Aeroklub headed by Frantisek Schiller, the Institute for Promotion of Trading, and Opava Commercial & Trading Chamber.
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The Mansion in the State´s Possession
After the World War II the People´s Committee decided on the first wave of renaming the Opava streets and squares. The renaming process mainly lied in removing German names. It was also Bahnhofstrasse - Nadrazni that vanished from the town plan, replaced by U Vychodniho Nadrazi (At East Railway Station) street. Yet the mansion kept its old orientation number 6. After the February Coup, era of "creative" and communist names came and Opava, with its proletarian leadership, did not want to get left behind. The name of the first communist president demanded a dignified street and that is why
Gottwald street
came into origin in 1948, after joining three side streets - Hrncirska, Janská and U Vychodniho Nadrazi. The mansion got new orientation number 28. The address was changed again in 1990, after the fall of the communist regime.
Gottwald street
was replaced with two streets - Hrncirska and Janská. The mansion was assigned new orientation number 4.
The Opava Commercial & Trading Chamber became gradually an only user of the mansion when finally, in 1947, they succeeded in moving out BAPO and Aeroklub CSR firms.
The Opava Commercial & Trading Chamber was established in order to support commerce, industry and trade interests in
Silesia
. Originally, the chamber was settled in Opava Town Hall, than in the Museum of Frantisek Josef I, in the building of arts and industry (today´s an imposing building of the Silesian Provincial Museum located in green) and finally, in a detached building built in place of a residential house in Nadrazni street. The institution located its ´Institute for Promotion of Trading´ in the Zwierzina´s mansion in
6 Nadrazni street
. According to the drawings preserved after the reconstruction of it the mansion sheltered a few classrooms, chemical-technology laboratories, weighing room, studies and storerooms of teaching aids on the 1st floor, metal roentgen, mechanical-technological laboratories, technological collections, teaching hairdresser´s hall, hair-drying room, lecture hall and storerooms on the ground floor.
However, the communist regime, soon after its coming into power, liquidated the private business sector and thus the Opava Commercial & Trading Chamber lapsed. The Institute for Promotion of Trading ceased and its building became a property of the Czechoslovak state on
18th May 1950
, namely of the Czechoslovak Works of Heavy Machinery, the national enterprise, and subsequently, Ostroj Opava, the national enterprise. Upon having been taken over by Ostroj, the mansion underwent purpose reconstruction according to a project drawn up by the architectural studio of Stavoproject Opava. The existing premises changed into dormitory on the 1st floor and classrooms, pedagogues rooms and an isolation room on the ground floor. When a new Ostroj´s Apprentices campus was built on Kolofikovo quay, the mansion in
Gottwald street
lost its purpose and was used by the Ostroj´s ROH works club for a short time. In 1953, the company top management decided to refurbish the mansion into a cr?che. The reconstruction changed the mansion to beyond recognition. Partition walls divided the inner space of the 1st floor into day rooms for babies, meeting rooms, bedrooms, a change-room and a kitchen, while on the ground floor a dining room, a playroom and another day room for babies were built. A service-lift was built in the hall. During subsequent construction works in the cr?che a terrace was built up to it. In 1966, the first phase of the general repair of the cr?che passed bearing on external works above all. The next phase of the general repair works went on in 1972 based on a project. The project investor was represented by Ostroj Opava, the national enterprise, and the Regional Construction Company acted as a builder. Among others, a food-lift and new central heating were built.
The Mansion´s Fate after 1990
After the fall of the communist regime, privatisation of Ostroj in 1992 and new approach of upbringing children inside family caused the end of the c?rche in Janska No 4 street. The building was rented by the First Silesian Bank, Inc. The management immediately started reconstruction of the mansion for banking purposes. However, the bank became bankrupt soon due to the very bad bank economy. The premises were closed for some time. Soon the Ostroj owners rented the mansion to various companies as a Silesian manager centre. In 1999, G. M. PROJECT Company, so far residing in
Lower Square
, bought the mansion. The company decided on a general reconstruction of the mansion with the aim to approach its original inner arrangements as well as outside appearance as much as possible. Both the outbuilding, insensitively added in 1958, and all outside premises of the former cr?che were torn down. At the same time, the boiler-room serving for other two neighbouring buildings. The inside premises were, as per layout, fully approximated to the needs of an engineering & consulting company. The purpose-built premises are completed with representative rooms equipment of which evokes old-times atmosphere.
Josef Gebauer
Archivist-specialist
For website purpose adapted by Jiri Spacil and Jiri Moninec.
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