Modernist Delights

Palác Morava, Brno, Czechia, 2026

A multi-storey corner building with a red-brick façade and a white stone-clad corner section stands at a city intersection. The ground floor features shopfronts with green frames and Sklizeno signs, while tram tracks curve across the foreground under a cloudy blue sky.

A curved block of flats with a red-brick and white-tiled façade stands against a blue sky with scattered clouds. The street-level shopfronts feature signs for Utopia Čajovna, Ryor, and a Fitness 2000, with cars parked along the pavement in the foreground.

An urban building with a curved façade of red brick and light-coloured concrete stands against a blue, cloudy sky. Multiple rows of windows are visible, and the ground floor features shopfront windows with signs that read Jídelna and Bez lepková. Black trolley wires cross the upper frame.

A multi-storey building with a rounded, red-brick corner façade rises above a street-level commercial area. Shops include a tea room labelled Utopia, a Ryor cosmetics store, and a Fitness 3000 gym, with several parked cars lining the pavement under a bright blue sky.

Palác Morava is a building of two halves – an older 6 storey half (the last 3 pictures here, built 1929), and a newer 4 storey half (the first picture, built 1936).

It’s mainly the older part of the building which appeals to me – it’s a concrete frame clad in attractive decorative patterned brick, and the inward curve of the upper storeys provides visual interest.

The building is surrounded by tram tracks on all sides, which does make it rather difficult to photograph cleanly.

Pohořelec 461/2, Brno, Czechia, 2026

A multi-storey, beige office building with grid-patterned windows sits on a street corner, bordered by older, ornate architecture. At the ground level, white panels cover the base of the building, featuring small advertisements and posters near a few pedestrians walking on the stone plaza.

Centrum department store, Brno, Czechia, 2026

A wide view shows the tall, glass-fronted Centrum building standing in a city square, with CENTRUM in bold red letters on its roof. Pedestrians walk along the paved street in the foreground, flanked by buildings with tan and dark walls under a partly cloudy blue sky.

A modern, grid-like glass office building stands under a bright blue sky, topped with a large red sign reading CENTRUM. The ground floor features a Lidl supermarket entrance, whilst the reflective glass facade mirrors the surrounding city buildings and clouds.

Built in 1930-31 as a building for the shoe manufacturer Baťa — I’ve written about their Centrální sklad obuvi in Zlín before. It was intended to be the first skyscraper in Europe, at 28 floors. Ultimately, construction was stopped at only 8 floors, due to issues with the subsoil and building foundations, and likely the controversial nature of the project as well, as the site was within the Brno Urban Conservation Area. Ah, well, perhaps they should’ve tried building it in the Northern Quarter instead.

In the 1960s, the building was remodelled, losing its’ trademark black and white striped look with a new all-glass facade.

‘Královna noci’ by Tamara Divišková, Park Koliště, Brno, Czechia, 2026

A large, ceramic-style sculpture stands on a stone plinth in a park, featuring a brown vase-like body with blue and white accents supporting a flat, disc-shaped top. It is positioned on a path between green trees and bushes, with historic buildings visible in the background.

This is one of a series of four statues in Park Koliště, Brno by ceramicist, costume designer, and Brno-native Tamara Divišková. Two of the statues, including this one, “The Queen of the Night”, represent characters from Mozart’s opera The Magic Flute; the remaining two are a bird feeder and bird bath. The statues date from approximately 2002.

The statues are made from glazed ceramic fired in a ceramic water pipe factory in Poštorná, with a polystyrene foam core adding durability. Still, the statues are targeted by vandals. Ms Divišková passed away just last month, in September 2026, but during her lifetime she was known to clean the statues herself.

Knowing the research behind this post, they make perfect sense, but in situ they read as fantastical, almost fairy-tale objects. Beyond the obvious bird feeder and bird bath, all of them feel made with birds in mind. The Queen of the Night was even meant to have flowers growing from her head. That suits their setting in a park, and the artist herself is known to have topped up the feeder with birdseed.

One more fun fact: her father was an early Czech racing driver Karel Divíšek.