A Glimpse into History

Discover the History of the Places You Pass Every Day

What did some of the places in the centre of Ústí nad Labem look like decades ago? What has changed, and what has remained the same to this day? The answers to these questions will be revealed by a new pilot project from the Tourism Department, called ‘A Glimpse into History’.

Information panels, which you’ll find at five locations in the city centre until the end of September (opposite the National House, by the Cultural Centre of Ústí nad Labem, on Malá Hradební Street near the bus stops, on Mírové náměstí in front of the Zdar Palace, and on Lidické náměstí), will use historical photographs and interesting facts to show you what these places looked like in the past and how they have changed over the years.

Stand at the correct angle to the information panel, look through its transparent section and see what buildings that no longer exist or have been significantly rebuilt used to look like. However, we ask for your understanding: the positioning of historical buildings within the current urban landscape is approximate and may vary.

The project will also feature a fun competition, with every participant receiving a small gift. Simply visit all five locations, take a photo at each one, and show the photos at the Ústí nad Labem City Information Centre. At the end of August and September, we will also draw several winners who will receive themed book prizes.

The Elbe Fountain

On the site of what is now Lidické Square, there used to be a cemetery next to the little Church of St Materna as late as the second half of the 19th century. The cemetery, and subsequently in 1895 the Renaissance church – both of which were originally situated outside the city walls of Ústí nad Labem – gave way to the city’s expansion, and the site was converted into a park. In memory of the demolished church, the park was initially named Maternianlagen (Materna’s Gardens) and, from 1911, Materniplatz (Materna Square). Between 1907 and 1909, a magnificent Neo-Baroque building housing the municipal theatre was erected on the western side of the square, designed by the Viennese architect Alexander Graf.

In 1911, a fountain designed by the Dresden sculptor Selmar Werner was unveiled opposite the theatre. The structure was financed and donated to the city by the Ústí-based industrialist Ludwig Wolfrum. It was named the Elbe-Brunnen (Elbe Fountain; in older sources, it is also referred to as the Schöne Brunnen, or Beautiful Fountain) and was dominated by a female figure on a pedestal, gazing towards the theatre as the personification of the River Elbe. At her feet stood a statue of a child, representing the River Bílina. Further down, at the edge of the circular basin, were four seated male figures representing navigation on the Elbe, mining, industry and trade as the sources of prosperity for Ústí nad Labem. This concept referred to the city’s age-old connection with the river, which had largely determined its fate. In 1940, the Nazi city administration insensitively removed the landscaping from the square (renamed Langemarckplatz between 1938 and 1945), including the fountain, and the area was paved, creating a stark space nicknamed ‘Appellplatz’ by the people of Ústí. As the statues were made of bronze, it is likely that they were requisitioned for war purposes. After the Second World War, the square was renamed Lidické, and in 1963 it underwent a redesign that restored green spaces and water features in the form of pool fountains.

Selmar Werner (12/12/1864, Thiemendorf – 19/8/1953, Graupa) was a German sculptor, painter and printmaker. Between 1907 and 1927, he served as a professor at the Dresden Academy of Fine Arts. Among his extensive body of work, which includes portraiture, monumental and funerary sculpture, one of the most notable pieces is the bronze statue of Christ for the fountain at Dresden’s Church of the Reconciliation (1928). Werner was a close friend of Karl May, who also had ties to Ústí nad Labem. Werner created not only the well-known marble bust of May, but also the sculptural decoration for his tomb in Radebeul.

The Ústí Synagogue

Jews began to move to Ústí nad Labem only in the late 1840s, following the relaxation of restrictions after 1848. The number of Jewish residents in Ústí continued to grow despite all the hardships the era brought them, and so in 1863 a prayer hall was established in a house on the corner of Bílinská and Malá Hradební streets. Three years later, a house on Malá Hradební was purchased, on the site of which a synagogue was to be built. Finally, in 1870, an Israelite religious community was officially authorised in the town.

Construction of the synagogue itself, in the Oriental style, was commenced by the renowned local building firm of Alwin Köhler on the 1st of April 1880. The cost of the construction, which exceeded 20,000 Austrian gulden, was raised by the members of the religious community themselves. The building was completed that very same year and consecrated by the Teplice rabbi, Dr Artur Rosenzweig. Amongst others, the ceremony was attended by the choir of the Roudnice Jewish community and the local German choral society. In 1901, the synagogue was extended and fitted with a two-manual organ made by the Rieger company of Krnov. During the inter-war period, it served nearly a thousand Jewish residents of Ústí.

Although the synagogue survived the anti-Jewish riots that followed the Munich Agreement on the 30th of September 1938, as well as the so-called Kristallnacht (the anti-Jewish pogrom on the night of the 9th to the 10th of November 1938), it was completely destroyed on the 31st of December of the same year, when the Nazis set it alight. Making use of the surviving perimeter walls, the Houdek butcher’s firm subsequently built a sausage production facility and a butchery training college on the site. During the Allied air raids on the city on the 17th and 19th of April 1945, the entire area was severely damaged by bombing and the building was completely destroyed. Even after the war, the site was not treated with respect, and public toilets were installed in the former cellars. Between 2008 and 2009, the vacant lot left by the demolished buildings, including the former synagogue, was developed to house the Forum shopping centre.

The National House

The building that now serves as the National House provides an interesting insight into the development of social life in Ústí nad Labem. The original building was commissioned by Anton Schmidt in 1853. It housed an inn, which also included a garden restaurant with a lounge and a bowling alley. In the 1870s and 1880s, Theresie Schmidt, the widow of the original owner, carried out alterations and extensions to create a dance hall. Further building work took place between 1895 and 1899.

After the First World War, local Czech associations jointly purchased the property, and the building was thus given a new name – the National House. It became the social and cultural centre of the Czech minority in Ústí nad Labem. For example, the North Bohemian National Union, Sokol and the Czech District Youth Welfare Organisation had their offices or club rooms here; Otomar Bukač’s Czech bookshop and publishing house also operated here. This is what you can see in the view through the transparent section.

Towards the end of the Second World War, after the April air raids had destroyed the headquarters of the NSDAP district leadership (originally the Ressource association building, which stood roughly where part of the City Hall building stands today), the NSDAP district commander Rudolf Schittenhelm briefly held office in the National House. On the 8th of May 1945, representatives of the Czech Revolutionary Committee – Doležal, Jakubíček and Jelínek – arrived here to meet him, accompanied by the German Social Democrat Otto Uthoff. Schittenhelm, who had initially been unyielding, allowed himself to be persuaded by the delegation to abandon his plan to defend the city and to recognise the Revolutionary Committee’s seizure of power.

After the Second World War, the building was home to the House of Enlightenment. In the 1960s, it housed the administration of the town’s cultural facilities, and in the second half of that decade, the Kladivadlo theatre company was based here, from which the Činoherní Studio later emerged. In the 1970s, the building underwent further renovation. It housed, for example, the Culture Department of the District National Committee, the District Community Centre, the North Bohemian Publishing House and the editorial office of the newspaper Sever.

In 1983, the Hai Phong restaurant opened here, the very first establishment serving Vietnamese cuisine in the then Czechoslovak Socialist Republic. During the Velvet Revolution, on the 23rd of November 1989, the people of Ústí founded the local Civic Forum here. Since 1991, the building has been managed by the Ústí nad Labem Community Centre and has reverted to its inter-war name, the National House.

Schaffner’s Villa

On the site where the Community Centre stands today, a magnificent Neo-Gothic villa stood until 1959. It was commissioned by Max Schaffner, the long-serving director of the Austrian Association for Chemical and Metallurgical Production. Construction took place between 1874 and 1876 to a design by the Viennese architect Hans Miksch, with Robert Langs overseeing the building work. The size and grandeur of the villa, which resembled a small castle, reflected Schaffner's social standing. The family continued to live in the villa after Schaffner’s death, but lost it in 1939, when it was purchased by the then mayor, Richard Tauch, apparently for significantly less than its market value. This was because Schaffner’s granddaughter’s husband was of Jewish origin. The villa subsequently housed the town hall. In 1945, the building was confiscated as German property, and in 1954 a decision was taken to demolish the villa, which took place on the 25th of September 1959. A Community Centre, designed by Jaroslav Lácha and Helena Láchová Skálová, was subsequently built on the cleared site.

Max Schaffner (1830–1907) was one of the leading figures of the 19th-century industrial elite and a key driving force behind the economic development of north-western Bohemia. He successfully transformed the Austrian Association for Chemical and Metallurgical Production into one of the largest chemical conglomerates in the Habsburg Monarchy of the time. Under his leadership, the association expanded beyond Ústí and systematically introduced modern technological processes into its production. Schaffner was also instrumental in the construction of staff housing and the establishment of an employee insurance fund. His wife, Bertha, was dedicated to charitable work and, amongst other things, had the nearby valley of the Stříbrnický stream landscaped into a romantic-style forest park. To this day, this area bears her name: Berta’s Valley.

Hans Miksch (1846–1904), a native of Liberec, was the architect or co-architect – together with his partner Julian Niedzielski (1849–1901) – of a number of buildings in Ústí nad Labem. In addition to Max Schaffner, his clients included other wealthy residents of Ústí such as Carl Friedrich Wolfrum, Ludwig Wolfrum, Jacob Weinmann and Ignaz Petschek. Together with Niedzielski, Miksch also designed the grand Ressource Association building.

Robert Langs (1843–1914) was a builder in Ústí and the long-standing head of the construction department of the Austrian Association for Chemical and Metallurgical Production. Among other things, he was responsible for the designs of the association’s administrative building from 1893–1895 and the workers’ housing on what is now U Chemičky Street. These were built gradually between 1882 and 1907, and Neo-Gothic stylistic elements were also prominently featured in these projects.

The Court Building on Mírové Square

Mírové Square, originally known as Tržní (German: Marktplatz), has been the traditional centre of old Ústí since the Middle Ages. Given its long and often turbulent history, the square has also undergone many changes. The houses were rebuilt many times or constructed from scratch. The open space of the square also underwent changes. At least until the first third of the 19th century, there was no paving here; in the western part there was a fountain, and on the eastern side a column with a statue of St Anthony. The fountain was removed at the end of the 19th century, and the column was taken down in 1960 to make way for the construction of the Interhotel Bohemia. It did not return to the square until 1996, though on the opposite side. The traditional name ‘Marktplatz’ changed three times in the 20th century – following Germany’s annexation of the Czechoslovak border regions in 1938, the square was named ‘Platz der SA’; after the war, it was renamed ‘President Beneš Square’; and finally, in 1952, it was renamed to its current name, ‘Peace Square’.

The 16th-century half-timbered Renaissance town hall was demolished in 1845 and replaced two years later by a new building in the late Empire style. However, the new town hall with its tower did not serve its intended purpose for long. Following the revolutionary events of 1848, the so-called patrimonial (manorial) administration was abolished and centralised state authorities began to emerge. The building then served as the district court, which naturally enhanced the town’s prestige. Initially, the town lent the building free of charge; from 1850 onwards, it was let for a rent of 500 golden coins (gulden). Between 1852 and 1883, the town office was located in the school building on Solní Street (a street that no longer exists, near the Church of the Assumption of the Virgin Mary), and subsequently in the house known as Zur Goldenen Krone on the square, to the right of the court building.

The court building itself had already been extended in 1850 with the construction of a wing on Radniční Street (now roughly U Spořitelny Street). A further extension was added in 1889, when, on the other side of the building, a flat for the jailer, a storeroom and a workshop were added on the ground floor, cells on the first floor, and offices on the second floor. Later, the district administration also had its headquarters here.

The buildings to the right of the courthouse were demolished in 1937 and 1938, and in their place the Ústí Savings Bank (Aussiger Sparkasse) building was erected, designed by Franz Josef Arnold; it is currently the headquarters of a branch of Česká spořitelna. The building to the left of the courthouse was called Der Goldene Engel (The Golden Angel). This building, dating from 1830, originally had an arcade, which was probably filled in in 1844. It was one of the oldest inns in the town. The ground floor later housed the Kaffee Wien café; during the inter-war period, the first floor was leased to the district court, whilst other parts of the building were occupied by the district office, the tax office and the district school board. After the Second World War, the Zdar restaurant operated here, and the current Zdar Palace is named after it.

The court buildings and the Zdar restaurant were demolished on the 14th of January 1976 as part of plans to redevelop the city centre. The site was then deliberately left undeveloped; a car park was situated there, and the vacant lot visually emphasised the dominance of the later-built headquarters of the North Bohemian Regional Committee of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia (now the headquarters of the Ústí nad Labem Regional Authority) on Dlouhá Street. In 1993, an urban planning competition was launched for the completion of the historic centre, won by a conservative design by architect Roman Koucký, which envisaged replenishing the development to match the height and floor plan of the demolished buildings. Between 2004 and 2009, the Zdar Palace was built on this site, one of Ústí’s most successful projects since 2000. The design by architects Ivan Reimann and Jan Jehlík draws on inter-war Expressionist and Functionalist buildings, thereby continuing, to a certain extent, the city’s interrupted architectural development.

A Glimpse into History

This project showcases a lost side of Ústí nad Labem. If you stand at the right angle to the information panel and look through its transparent section, you will get an idea of where buildings that no longer exist or have been significantly rebuilt once stood and what they looked like.

Please note: The spatial positioning of historical buildings within the current built environment is approximate and may vary. Thank you for your understanding.

The ‘A Glimpse into History’ project was organised by the Tourism Department of Ústí nad Labem City Council.

The information panels will be on display at five locations across the city until mid-September: opposite the National House, by the Community Centre, on Malé Hradební Street near the bus stops, on Mírové Square in front of the Zdar Palace, and on Lidické Square.