bg Karlovy Vary

Karel Knol Porcelain Sample Room

- Sokolovská 338 -
The building that was built to house the sample room, which was built as a two-story commercial building, was built in 1905 as part of the Karel Josef Knoll Porcelain Factory. The construction was commissioned by the merchant and entrepreneur Karel Knoll, who bought land in 1842 in the vicinity of Karlovy Vary, on which he built a workshop for the production of stoneware pipes in 1846 and later a kaolin smelter. He prospered in business and over time his own prosperous porcelain factory stood on this site. Spa cups, figurines, and hotel porcelain were produced in the porcelain factory. Karel Josef Knoll died in 1868 and his sons, Adolf, Karel, and Ludvik took over the factory, who improved the product quality and introduced luxury painted goods. In its heyday, approximately three hundred employees worked in the porcelain factory.
The interior of the sample room in 1920
The sample room was used to demonstrate manufactured porcelain products with the possibility of purchasing them. After the , on January 1, 1946, the porcelain factory was nationalized and included in the national enterprise First Czech Porcelain Factory of Karlovy Vary. In the years between 1949 and 1951, due to backwardness and unprofitability, the company was shut down and the buildings were used as warehouses until 1990. In February 2021, the sample room was registered as a privately owned production and storage building.
An old photo showing the building in the 1920s
The tower on the southern side of the Art Nouveau building features two circular windows, under which you'll be able to see floral decorations. The tower is covered with a bell-shaped dome featuring eyebrow dormers, which is crowned with a . The piers on top of the building are topped with a decorative vase, some of which are embellished with a . More floral decorations are used to decorate the building, which is used between two of the piers, in the , around the female , as well as the , which are decorated with . It also counts for the that are placed underneath the roof . Underneath one of the windows, you can see tiles that are adorned with floral motifs that depict and foliage, among other things.
The building is shown in an old photo