The Secessionist style of Art Nouveau appeared in Osijek at nearly the same time as it did in the imperial capital, Vienna. Namely, a rather small group of wealthy, eccentric Osijek citizens had the chance, whether for business or leisure, to discover the latest stylistic movements and fashions that were taking hold at the Empire’s very heart. These citizens commissioned their designs from carefully selected architects in Vienna, Budapest, Prague or Zagreb. Other clients managed to recreate the Secession’s stylistic features by using builders and architects from Vienna, Munich or Prague who had come to work temporarily in Osijek, or settled there for good.

The earliest Osijek Secessionist buildings were built by the Osijek builder Wilim Carl Hofbauer, who came to Osijek from Vienna. He built a Jewish school in the town, along with two villas, the Schneller Hotel, Count Pejačević Well, and the first Secession house in the famous Osijek Secession sequence, the Nayer House. He is followed chronologically by another Osijek builder, Antun Slaviček, trained in Prague, who built the largest number of Osijek’s most representative Secession houses. Osijek architect Viktor Axmann, educated in Munich, achieved the most significant part of his architectural opus in the Secession style. Along with the above listed architects and builders, numerous other Osijek builders, such as Franz Wybiral, Paul Wranka and Adalbert Bauer, also designed Secession houses.

In addition to the construction of Secession residential and business buildings, as well as industrial facilities, the city of Osijek takes pride in its Secession urban planning. The city has systematically planned and implemented a successful policy of street and park construction since 1900. Underpinning these efforts was the 1912 Regulatory Basis, which governed how physically distant, stylistically contrasting districts could be woven into a unique, modern, functioning urban fabric. This creative Secession explosion included such ideas as building a new town hall, theatre and other institutions.

The northern side of European Avenue is a unique example in Croatia of a sequence of representative Secession houses with front gardens. Consisting of eight houses built during the period 1904–1906, it begins in the west with the Gillming-Hengl detached one-storey house. Six houses follow – the Povischil, Nayer, Sauter, Kästenbaum-Korsky, Spitzer and Neo-Baroque Schmidt houses – before the sequence concludes with the two-storey Sekulić corner house. The original owners of these houses were distinguished Osijek lawyers, an industrialist, a landowner and a senior army officer in the 78th Osijek Infantry Regiment. Construction of all the houses in the sequence was overseen by Osijek builders, while the architects were builders Wilim Carl Hofbauer and Ante Slaviček from Osijek, as well as architects Ernst von Gotthilf from Vienna and Ferenc Fischer from Budapest. Rich Secessionist decorations on the house facades and the varied forms of front-garden fences create a harmonious, stylistically unique Secession whole, recognisable as part of the city’s visual identity.