Brno Construction Office

The remarkable creative atmosphere was enhanced by the enlightened construction policy of the city of Brno and the presence of excellent architects, the constellation of which at the given time and at the given place was nothing short of miraculous. Jindřich Kumpošt held the post of main city architect from 1920-1925. He was an excellent city planner, propagator of solutions to social housing and the author of a range of publications and continued in his work as a creative architect while still in his office. He was the one who often brought extremely young architects to Brno, within whose shadow he has unjustly sometimes remained. The most renowned of these was undoubtedly Bohuslav Fuchs. Other important figures in between-the-wars Brno architecture included: Ernst Wiesner, Josef Polášek, Jaroslav Grunt, Otto Eisler, Miloslav Kopřiva, Emil Králík, Josef Kranz, Jiří Kroha, Vilém Kuba, Miloš Laml, Oskar Poříska, Bedřich Rozehnal, Jan Vaněk, Jan Víšek, Eduard Žáček and a specific group of Jewish architects. The building production was also significantly enhanced by legislation for support of building which, for example, granted major advantages to the construction industry in the form of state support. The most renowned Brno construction companies included those led by Mořic and Artur Eisler, Václav Dvořák and Alois Kuba, Stanislav Neděla or František Hrdina. An early realization from this period was, for example, the so-called Guttman House on Údolní street (1919-20) by the architect Ernst Wiesner (1890-1971). The symmetry and block style of the building freed from all forms of décor (applied only in the form of sculpted window trimmings from glazed ceramics) served to declare the arrival of Purism and prepared the soil for Functionalism which reached a remarkably high level in Brno.