The facades of the Czech houses in Banat from the end of the 19th century were plastered, painted with lime and richly decorated with classicizing ornaments. Until the mid-1930s, these facades were restored during repairs. Thus, on many houses we can find a stucco plaque with the date of the restoration.
However, these ornate facades can only be found on the side of the house facing the street. The other walls were covered with clay or lime mortar and painted with lime. The walls facing the gardens or adjacent to other people's land often did not even have a lime coating.
The decorated facade was divided into plinth, face and gable.
The plinth was made with a coarser plaster with added stones and sometimes soot from the chimney, which gave it a dark-grey colour and increased its resistance to moisture. It was decorated with a thin border of plain white plaster.
The facade surfaces were usually plastered with three layers of plaster; two layers of coarser plaster with stones and then a stuccoed, smooth lime plaster. At the very end, the facades were painted with white lime. The facade in particular was repainted with lime very frequently.
Classicizing decoration of the facade from the end of the 19th century restored in 1957.
The facades are decorated with classical elements (e.g. semi-pilasters, grooves, coffers, quatrefoils), which could be found as early as in ancient architecture. However, these elements became part of local culture and are very subtle.
The older gables of the houses used to be wooden, the newer ones were either wooden or brick with a lime coating.
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Projekt byl podpořen z prostředků Ministerstva zahraničních věcí ČR v rámci projektů veřejné diplomacie.
