The house of Alois Nakládal

Zlín businessman Alois Nakládal was a successful greengrocer who gradually became the owner of several properties in the old part of the city. One of these properties was a house that he had built in the late 1920s on Rašínova Street, but sold quickly in the early 1930s. His next house stands on the corner of Komenského street (today třída Tomáše Bati) and Školní street, the longer side of the facade facing the former Komenského school.

This mixed-use building No. 203 on Školní street was built for Alois and Františka Nakládal according to the design of Miroslav Lorenc, a prominent architect for the "non-Baťa" part of Zlín. After moving from Prague to Zlín, Lorenc worked in the Construction Department of the Baťa company for more than a year, but eventually established himself as an independent architect, creating about 60 projects for Zlín's citizens and tradesmen. Nakládal's house has the usual typology combining commercial and residential function.

Construction began on June 25, 1933, and the house was partially used as early as December 20 of that year. However, the building was not completed and approved until December 28, 1933. The construction was carried out by the builder Bohumil Zámečník, who had previously worked with the client.

The three storey house with a basement has a reinforced concrete load-bearing structure with concrete ceilings, supplemented by brick infill masonry. The elongated rectangular building is divided into two symmetrical wings, each with a separate entrance and stairs accessible from Školní Street. The façade was treated with a textured plaster. The ground floor was accentuated by dark artificial stone cladding. On the other floors, white painted, three-part casement windows with ventilation wings were used, characteristic of the vocabulary of Lorenc's architecture. The street façade thus takes a simple form of a regular grid of windows. Four business units were created on the ground floor, but with new partitions these were soon divided into five units. On the three upper floors there were two- to four-room flats, and on the top floor there were one-room bachelor apartments. On the northern and southern edges of the roof, two residential terraces are cut from an otherwise even house volume. The resulting form displays the inspiration of nautical aesthetics typical of functionalism. The house in its simple form creates the impression of a ship and dominates the corner of one of the main city streets. The equipment of the house is complemented by cellars for tenants and shops together with a boiler room in the basement, sanitary facilities for commercial units accessible from the courtyard and a laundry room with dryers on the top floor.

Alois Nakládal's family used a spacious four-room apartment on the first floor with a kitchen, pantry, bathroom, and a maid's room. After the completion of the building, the tenants were mostly representative of the upper middle class, such as the store manager on the ground floor František Smékal, František Domnosil, and the doctor MUDr. Antonín Ivaščenko, who used one of the flats as a surgery. From the very beginning, the largest commercial space on the ground floor belonged to the branch of the well-known Olomouc textile wholesale, František Smékal. In the autumn of 1934, the city council approved the use of two neon signs “F. Smékal "in light blue. The signs were placed horizontally and at a right angle above the parapet of the north terrace on the top floor towards T. Baťa Avenue. In addition, a vertical inscription "ODĚVY" was installed on the longer western façade, which would have referred to František Jirsák's tailor business on the ground floor below. Another advertising space was a horizontal strip of white coloured glass above the shop windows, which together with the neon signs helped to make the whole house look more prominent. The other business units housed a watchmaker, a general store, and a stamp store. Shortly after the completion of the house, between 1934 and 1936, concrete balconies with tubular railings were added on the first to third floors towards the courtyard, which partially aligned the otherwise irregular rear façade.

After the renaming of Zlín to Gottwaldov, we record only a few minor alterations of commercial premises and the creation of other smaller flats instead of laundries and dryers, which moved to the basement. Probably after World War II, the dominant element of the neon sign of the Smékal company was removed from the corner terrace. After the revolution, in 1991 the former haberdashery was converted into a sausage and delicatessen shop, which still operates here today. Partitions were newly-built separating the utility rooms. Two entrances to the store and a dispensing window for refreshments were created on the street. The shop window took the form of convex glass and the ground floor was lined with ceramic tiles. In addition, in 1992, the largest commercial space on the corner was adapted into a stationer. The building is in relatively good condition and its use remains the same. Textured plaster remains on the facade, and thermal insulation is only beginning to be installed on the north terrace. Several original wooden windows remain; the others have already been replaced with plastic ones. 

 

 

MK