#Apartment house #Ústí nad Labem #1937
Matiční 2/380, 4/381, 6/382, 6/383
400 07
Ústí nad Labem,
Czechia
Public transport: Ústí nad Labem sever (train station) / Pekařská
Today's use: abandoned
Description
Arnold as a city architect designed various urban housing estates in Ústí nad Labem. These houses belong to the so-called "1936 type", of which there are several versions in the city. They all have in common that they have entrances to staircases and single-loaded corridors on one side. In these blocks in Matiční Street they are facing north. The flats are entered from this side. Right next to the entrance are the bathroom and kitchen, behind them the one living and sleeping room with windows facing south. The edges of the long houses are marked by a kind of side extension. The single-loaded corridors end in them and inside these "cubes" were designed flats with two rooms. All the houses of this type have a smaller, shorter and lower top floor, which was probably used as an attic, but perhaps also as a living area.
Arnold had already used the idea of single-loaded corridors in the S-houses.
History
The plans for these houses date from 1936 and they are part of the city's social programme to give people with little money a small but well-equipped place to live.
The blocks of houses became indirectly famous worldwide in 1999. The houses continued to be inhabited by poor people, at that time mainly Romani people. The city had a wall built around the houses by the demand of other residents of the neighbourhood. It was supposed to serve as a demarcation (and noise insulation). There was a lot of international indignation and Václav Havel, the Czech president at the time, said that this was no way to solve a social problem. The wall was removed after six weeks.
In 2011, people did not longer live in the almost devastated blocks. Block 2/380 has already been demolished, the remaining three blocks will probably meet the same fate. Historian and publicist Martin Krsek protests against this, because he wants to preserve the historical heritage of the city and sees these houses as an important contribution how to solve the social aspects of housing in the 1930s.
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