FROM WOOD TO STONE
During the Middle Ages, small stone walls were added to the buildings at Lauby, helping to strengthen the timber structures above ground level. The earliest evidence of this shift from wood to stone in residential buildings dates from the period around the end of the 15th century, but the transition occurred mainly later, during the course of the 16th century. The great fire of 1556 marked a turning-point; after the fire, stone increasingly became the preferred building material.
A passageway was later created by knocking through the wall that separated the cellars of houses nos. 58 and 59, and during the Second World War all the cellars of the buildings on Velká Street were connected in this way. If one house was hit by bombs and the exit was blocked, people hiding in the cellar could pass through to the next cellar and escape.
THE EVOLUTION OF THE BUILDINGS
By the turn of the 18th century, all the residential buildings at Lauby were made mainly of stone. For example, the north perimeter wall of the cellar on parcel no. 55 was constructed using a mixture of masonry – quarried stones, a small number of bricks, and also cobbles. These cobbles were collected on the banks of the nearby Ostravice River, providing a cheap source of building material.
A panorama of the town dating from 1728 shows six buildings all of the same height. They evidently had a single floor, though an upper floor may have been added to house no. 54 during the 17th century. By 1820, upper floors had also been added to houses nos. 56 and 57. The first plans from the official land register (known as the stable cadastre) show that the central and rear parts of the block contained utilitarian outbuildings, in accordance with medieval practice. There were stables for animals, and the residents grew fruit and vegetables. This form of land use continued until the second half of the 19th century, when there were radical changes: two houses (nos. 58 and 59) were completely rebuilt, and new buildings were added on the side of the plots facing onto Pivovarská Street.
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