Franz Schmitt (1816–1883) ran a weaving and printing factory for woollen fabrics in Český Dub from 1843, and he gradually acquired and built other factories in Semily and in Zittau in Saxony, Germany. In 1860 he bought land near Semily at a bend in the Jizera River and built a cotton spinning mill there. This big project was coordinated by the experienced Swiss engineer Jacob Zollinger (1807–1894).
The spinning mill building was designed by Carl Tietz (1832–1874), an architect of Prussian birth, who built a successful career in Vienna. He also designed a trio of two-storey residential row houses located near the spinning mill, which in 1867 became the starting point for the gradual development of the Iserthal workers’ colony.
The spinning mill burned down in 1870, but soon after it was rebuilt and equipped to operate at an even greater capacity: the space of the 190-metre-long, three-storey, five-tract building, which has wooden floors set on cast-iron columns, was able to accommodate 40,000 spindles, which were powered by four 150 HP turbines, driven by millrace on the Jizera River, and by a steam engine in a separate building at the centre of the site. At the same time, in 1871 and 1872, a weaving mill for 1,000 looms was built in two phases of construction at the north end of the site – the steel structure of the weaving shed, one of the first in the country, was designed by the engineer John J. Derham (1821–1901) in Blackburn (Lancashire). (...)
This was followed by the construction of a yarn bleaching building in 1875 at the site’s west end, along with a second, smaller spinning mill for 10,000 spindles, which replicated the articulation of the façade used by Tietz. The company builder, Josef Hartl (1853–1931), applied the same articulation to the façade of the extension that he designed and built onto the smaller spinning mill to house the blowers, and he equipped this building with a sprinkler tower. On the site’s north end he added a new spinning shed, this one in reinforced concrete, and a new engine house and boiler house.
In 1889, under the direction of Schmitt’s son-in-law and successor, Conrad Blaschka (1849–1913), new machinery was purchased and the mill’s capacity was increased to 70,000 spindles. This required the purchase of a new 1,200 HP steam engine from the Sulzer brothers’ machine shop in Winterthur, Switzerland, for which the builder Petr Kramář constructed a new engine house that featured a stucco ceiling. It is this building that the site is centred around today.
With this set of buildings, the factory continued to produce various textiles up until the year 2009. The current owner, company Fabrika 1861, is gradually opening the site up to the public, and it is renting out the buildings for use as warehouse space, workshops, and studios, while the courtyard and the aforementioned engine house are used to host cultural events.
Bavlnářská 137, 513 01 Semily, Czechia
