The Brummel House

The most valuable and preserved of all Loos’ Pilsen realizations is the home he designed for Jan Brummel and his family at 58 Husova Street. Jan Brummel was in the construction lumber business. From 1927-1929, this once architecturally average house, with a façade designed to fit the Romantic Historicism style of the late 19th century, was radically reconstructed according to Loos’ design. The exterior appearance of the original home was completely transformed when Loos removed all the decorative elements from the façade, and when he hid the single-pitched roof behind the high attic. He also added a vertical extension to the west side of the home. In this way, the building gained an unmistakable form of progressive and modern architecture.

However, the most valuable part of his design is located inside the house. On the first floor of the home, you’ll find a unique, two-generation apartment for Jan and Jana Brummel, as well as for Jana’s mother, Hedvika Liebstein. The apartment features a perfectly thought-out interior. Both sections of the apartment, meaning both the young Brummels’ and Mrs. Hedvika Liebstein’s living spaces, could function independently or as an interconnected common dining hall. The individual rooms were equipped with unique, built-in furniture, and they feature an axial symmetry which is quite typical of Adolf Loos and his designs. The symmetry of the rooms enhances the continuous view of the adjoining spaces. The interiors of the apartment have been preserved almost in their complete state, including the unique and rare collection of original free-standing furniture designed by Adolf Loos. This is exceptionally important as no other examples of such furniture have survived in other Loos interiors.

In the individual rooms, we can admire sophisticated combinations of different materials and coloured surface finishes. One such example can be seen in Jan and Jana Brummel’s living room, which features oak wood cladding and an impressive concrete replica of a Renaissance fireplace. This fireplace was meant to distract the residents and visitors of the apartment from the windows, which only provided a view of the unsightly industrial surroundings of the house. A similar distraction was provided by the large painting by Austrian painter Robert Aigner, which includes motifs of an Italian landscape painted directly onto the wall of the dining room. Here the built-in furniture and wall cladding were made of Canadian poplar root wood. Visitors have the unique opportunity to visit the entire apartment including the bathroom, bedrooms, and Hedvika Liebstein’s extravagant “yellow room”.

A team led by the Professor of Architecture Václav Girsa were responsible for the reconstruction of the Brummel House.