Locations #1

The owner of the house, Alexandria-born Franz Stross, was a commissioning agent at the Liberec-based textile and carpet business Johann Liebieg & CO. After World War I, he came to Liberec (then Reichenberg) and moved into a luxury house there. In the architect Thilo Schoder he found an innovative designer. From 1907, Schoder was a student of a predecessor of the Bauhaus, Henry van der Velde, who was also the founder of the Grand Duchy of Saxony School of Arts and Crafts in Weimar (Großherzoglich-Sächsische Kunstgewerbeschule). The influence of this world-famous teacher is visible to this day in the top-quality furnishings inside the Stross House: every door handle, every window, every item of fitted furniture is part of the integrated design concept. The exterior walls were originally plastered with red porphyry and joined horizontally by unplastered granite edges; this play on architecture makes the house resemble the body of a ship. The overall impression of the house and the origin of its owner made the local people, even today, call the house »Nildampfer« - Nile steamer.