Rodný dům Jana Kubelíka House

Rodný dům Jana Kubelíka in street At the gas plant in Prague 4 - Michli is a historical building set up around 1878. Remarkable as the birthplace of the famous Czech violinist and music composer and also as one of the last examples of the original home building in the historical core of Michle. The street wing of this building is protected as a real-estate cultural monument of the Czech Republic since 6 February 2017. This sheltered building represents a valuable reminder of the earlier construction of Prague suburbs from the 1970s, when these territories developed rapidly in the context of progressive industrialisation.

The house was built in 1878. They had it built by the husbands Matìj and Barboro Kubelik, who moved here from Pankrác and operated a garden shop. The historical context of this era is linked to the development of Prague suburbs, followed by a massive factory construction and a new urban development that changed the surrounding area significantly in later years.

From the point of view of architecture it is a corner residential house with a saddle roof whose north four-axis facade is oriented to U Plynárny Street. The eastern facade ends with a low shield with a cross-section of the saddle roof and a small rectangular opening to the attic. This part of the house is underglued and on the ground floor there are two rooms with flat ceilings and windows lined with profiled shambles. He added a single-storey court wing to the street building with an unveiled pavement in a ground-plan trail in the shape of the letter L. The south wing of the court is a storey, unencumbered and covered with a counter roof. It contains an open porch or a braid carried on a console formed by a brick arch into a traverse. In the course of the twentieth century, this tower was beaten from outside by planks and equipped with four non-original windows. The space underneath is equipped with wooden construction with carved stiffening tapes and railing. The shield wall of the street building on the east side is followed by a fence formed by a high suspicion of a solid wall with pillars, a metal grid fence and stone steps leading to an opening for a two-wing metal goal.

The property history of the object has undergone a number of significant changes. The first owners were Matej and Barbora Kubelik, while the family owned the house until 1919. Four years later, the house became part of a wider area of the Hellada Soap Factory, later known as the National Company of the Prague Candle House. In this era, the interiors of the street building were adapted to offices and laboratories, the area underwent landscaping and the building was killed by planks. After 1993, the factory site, including the court wing, was returned to the original family in restitution and the street wing fell to a branched family. The town of Prague 4 then bought it from Kubelík with a plan to set up a memorial. However, the reconstruction did not take place, the building served as a warehouse and the city sold it in 2012. In 2014, the street wing was purchased by the original violinists René Kubelík and temporarily secured against further decaying. In the meantime, the yard wing was acquired by the development company Hellada Project Development and the surrounding buildings of the former factory were demolished in 2022.

The key events associated with this place include the date of July 5, 1880, when the important Czech violinist and music composer Jan Kubelík was born here, who lived there his childhood. Another important milestone was 2017, when the street wing became a real cultural monument of the Czech Republic. The most dramatic modern moments are March 2026, when the roof of the still decaying street wing burned down.

Today the street wing is located in the historical core of Michle and despite the fire of the roof from March 2026 and long-term decay remains a valuable reminder of the life of the musical legend. Visiting this place in U gas works offers a unique opportunity to see one of the last buildings of an older suburban building in Michli and to honor the memory of a great Czech artist.