Komornická 1852/25

The original owners

The married couple Ferdinand and Vlasta Menger bought a plot of land with a building site in Dejvice, 1852 Komornická Street, in 1934. A year later, they commissioned the construction of a villa to the company of architects Freiwald – Böhm, 45 Palackého Street, Karlín.

Mr. Ferdinand Menger was a leading Prague financier. Over the years, he went from a prominent chief accounting executive to the chief executive officer of the Prague Municipal Savings Bank, with its seat in the Old Town Hall and later on the corner of Rytířská and Melantrichova Streets. In its time, it was Czechoslovakia´s largest savings bank with over 3 billion crown´s worth of deposits¹.It played a significant role in financing Prague ´s extensive construction projects in the interwar era.

At the same time, Menger held other significant offices, especially in the financial sector as the chief accountant of the Surveillance Authority; he was a founding member of Spořilov, a building society of savings bank depositors in Prague and Royal Vinohrady², while also being a member of the administrative board of Melantrich in 1920 – 1929.³

The architecture of the villa

The villa´s architects and builders, Jindřich Freiwald and Jaroslav Böhm (both were favourite disciples of the prominent Prague urbanist Jan Kotěra), designed a number of financial institutions (Czech Savings Banks in Červený Kostelec, in Nové Město nad Metují, Úpice, Česká Skalice and Hronov), townhouses, residential colonies and theatres in Chrudim, Hronov and Kolín.

In Prague, these architects were the authors of the functionalist building of the Aero Cinema in Žižkov and the Aero industrial factory in Karlín. Later, from 1935, the architects were designing the villas in Braník Nad Kostelem 725/8 (in the administration of the Diplomatic Service), in Vlnitá Street and in Mezivrší.

Jindřich Freiwald, a great patriot and Czechoslovak reserve officer, became involved in anti-Nazi resistance during World War II and as a captain of the Czechoslovak Army participated in the Prague Uprising. During the capitulation negotiations, he was captured by SS men on 8 May and shot dead the following day on a hill above the Krč Hospital⁴.