The Brno Faculty of Architecture is celebrating the 100th anniversary of the commencement of teaching

Brno - The Faculty of Architecture in Brno will start celebrations today for the hundredth anniversary of the beginning of architecture education at the Czech Technical University. The anniversary is not only an opportunity for the faculty to reflect on the past but also to contemplate what architecture education should look like in the coming decades. A number of meetings, lectures, exhibitions, concerts, and screenings are planned at the faculty in the upcoming year.

The Department of Architecture and Civil Engineering was established at the Czech Technical University in Brno on November 5, 1919. In the following decades, notable members of the teaching staff included figures such as Emil Králík, Bohuslav Fuchs, Miroslav Masák, and Ivan Ruller. Today, the Faculty of Architecture is an independent part of the Czech Technical University, which as a whole is celebrating 120 years this year.

In the courtyard of the faculty, on the occasion of the anniversary, a spatial installation has been created that will change throughout the upcoming year. It is intended for the academic community as well as the public. "The faculty courtyard will be open to everyone who wants to experience the intimacy of the Advent season, the exuberance of a folk feast, the excitement of sporting competition, the tension of a film screening, or just the joy of meeting friends and enjoying good coffee,” stated Dean Jan Kristek in a press release.

The transformation of the faculty's courtyard into a public space also symbolically emphasizes the values on which architecture education should be based in the coming century. The culmination of the year-long celebrations will be a theatrical portrayal of the relationship between architects Josef Hoffmann and Adolf Loos, initiated by the faculty to celebrate the 150th anniversary of their births.

Loos was born in Brno, and Hoffmann studied in the city. The commemoration of this significant anniversary should also open up the complicated topic of the relationship between Czechs and Germans and highlight the fact that architecture education in Brno would not be imaginable without the existence of the original German technical school.