The Slovak architect Dušan Samo Jurkovič (1868–1947) built his own villa in the Žabovřesky neighbourhood, settled over the years 1890–1919, above Wilson forest in Brno in 1906. Jurkovič ranked among the leading figures of Klub přátel umění (Club of Friends of Art) (the oldest Czech art association in Brno, established in 1900) alongside the writers Josef Merhaut, Alois and Vilém Mrštík and the composer Leoš Janáček. He employed the original technology of “grained half-timbered walls” and organised the Exhibition of Architecture and Applied Art in the newly completed building in August–September 1906 where the main item became the Villa itself. The period tendencies in style influenced by the idea of the British Arts and Crafts movement and European Modernism were propagated in a distinct fashion, additionally enriched by Jurkovič’s inspiration taken from folk architecture. Brno’s Jurkovič Villa currently ranks among the leading examples of the Central European Art Nouveau Folk style.
