The preservationists prepared an exhibition about workers' colonies

Ústí nad Labem - An exhibition titled Employee Colonies 1900 - 1938 began today at the castle in the Ústí district of Krásné Březno, focusing on social housing from the early 20th century in Northern Bohemia. The authors are employees of the Ústí branch of the National Heritage Institute, Jiří Bureš, Alena Sellnerová, and Marta Pavlíková. The castle in Krásné Březno also serves as the Ústí headquarters of the heritage institute. The exhibition consists of 25 information panels, several models of period accommodations, and video projections.
    The need for building accommodation capacities for labor forces became a significant topic in Northern Bohemia in connection with the development of industry and mining in the region. “It can be said that in the first third of the 20th century, the question of workers' housing was more than relevant. The process of industrialization and the intensification of coal resources in mining areas created the need for housing a whole army of workers and miners,” said Bureš at the opening of the exhibition.
    The exhibition examines solutions to this issue on two levels. “On one hand, it was a state action managed by the Ministry of Public Works, aimed at building state mining colonies in strategic coal mining areas,” Bureš stated. These colonies were financed from so-called coal funds, the source of which was a mandatory surcharge on the price of a metric cent of coal. “At the beginning of the 1920s, the first model colonies were established in Duchcov and Horní Lom,” he noted.
    According to him, the ministry approached various Czech and German architects for the construction of the colonies, including František Albert Libra, Jindřich Freiwald, Jaroslav Böhm, and Emil Králíček.
    The second level of addressing the issue of workers' housing was the construction of traditional employee colonies, which were managed by individual companies. “Given that we are in Ústí nad Labem, we cannot overlook the extensive construction of Schicht factories. We can also mention the recently sadly vanished colony in Světec near Bílina, which was built according to the design of architect Salvisberg for the Weinmann factories, aimed at accommodating workers from their glassworks, zinc plant, and several mines they owned in the Chudeřice and Ledvice areas,” said Bureš. He noted that interwar construction brought relatively high standards of workers' housing, which still serves residential purposes in many places today.
    The exhibition will last until August 16, and is accessible from Monday to Friday by prior arrangement at the phone number 724 900 758.

> more about the exhibition