Dům umění (House of Arts) – Dominican Monastery

For half a millenium, the space between today’s Pekařská, Mnišská, and Solná Streets with its convent and adjacent Church of St. Wenceslaus belonged to the Dominican Order. This Order of Preachers dates its presence in town to 1291 when according to a no longer existing document Nicholas I founded a monastery near the fortifications in the northern part of town. The first surviving reference to the Dominican Order is the list of Dominican convents penned in 1303 by the inquistior Bernard Guy, who became notorious thanks to Umberto Eco’s The Name of the Rose.

The monastery was built close to the town fortifications, which strengthened their defensive function. The construction took several decades. The first permanent part of the monastery to replace the temporary convent was the east wing with a rectangular sacristy, and a chapter hall with refectory. A cloister with paradise garden was constructed in the 14th century. The ambulatory with a cross vault opened into a garden with broken arches. In the 15th century the monastery and church roof trussing got heavily damaged in three fires. In the years 1541–1542 the prior and all thirty monks succumbed to plague. Since there was a shortage of Dominicans in Bohemia, the King’s committee decided to incorporate the convent in Opava into the Polish Dominican Order and brought Polish monks to the monastery. In 1556 the monastery burned down and due to disputes with the Lutheran officers the reconstruction dragged on. In the last two decades of the 16th century the monastery was repeatedly raided and plundered by the Lutherans.

The following century started off with extensive construction changes when a Renaissance bell turret and a side entry from the church to the Gothic chapel of St. Mary Magdalene were built. In the course of the Thirty Years’ War and in the 1620s the monastery was twice occupied by the invading army, and it also burned down. In 1651 the monastery library was heavily damanged in one of the worst fires in the history of the place. The buildings underwent only a provisional reconstruction. After the monastery had returned into Czech hands, it underwent a general Baroque overhaul in the years 1723–1724. Overseen by the architects J. J. Hausrucker and J. Rieth, the monastery turned into a two-storey building, the east wing was extened and a west wing was added. The cloister and chapter hall got a new vaulted ceiling. In 1758, five years after the great fire, a dog-leg staircase was built.

The monastery dissolved during the Joseph’s reforms, which was not originally planned, but as the order was indebted, in 1786 it requested liquidation to settle its debts. The church then experienced 150 years of hardships. Two years after the convent had been dissolved, the buildings were taken over by the army. From the end of the 18th century, the east and north wings housed first elementary, then secondary schools. The west wing was sold into private hands and it was turned into a townhouse. In the 1820s the west portal and tower were torn down. The church underwent a minor reconstrucion at the beginning of the 20th century, and after World War II there were efforts to reinstate it. However, the monastery was gradually falling into disrepair, in the years 1948–1949 the west wing was torn down, and in the 1960s the town council was even considering demolishing the whole complex. This intent was not realised, and in the years 1967–1974 the former convent underwent a complete reconstrucition.

The monastery was turned into an elementary art school, wine bar U Přemka, and town gallery Dům umění (House of Arts). According to Leopold Plavec’s design, the renewed atrium and cloister were paved with marble tiles, fitted with iron forged bars and railing from Alfred Habermann, and lighting from the glassmaker František Vízner.

In 1976 the sculpture Utíkající dívka (Running Girl) by the Opava native Kurt Gebauer was placed outside the gallery. Although it was often presented as a pride of socialistic culture, even during the socialistic regime Dům umění offered a quality art non-conforming to the period political situation. The change of atmosphere after November 1989 brought new impulses reflected in the management of the gallery, but the technical conditions gradually failed to meet the standards. The building was completely reconstructed in the years 2010 and 2011. The atrium was roofed and is now a part of the cloister. Today the gallery is run by Opavská kulturní organizace (Opava Cultural Organization).