Brno Architectural Manual

The Brno Architectural Manual (BAM) is a unique guide to Brno architecture of the interwar period available in three language versions. Its foundation is a clear database and an audio guide narrated by Brno actors and other significant personalities of Brno's cultural life. BAM allows anyone interested to plan educational walks through the most valuable monuments of Brno's interwar architecture, supported by freely available audio recordings, a web application, maps, and in the future, a printed book guide. Thanks to the possibility of further database additions, a comprehensive program can emerge, offering enthusiasts a walk through the architecture from the inception of modern Brno to the present day.

The Brno Architectural Trail project was created in collaboration with the Statutory City of Brno and the House of Arts of the City of Brno, with financial support from the European Regional Development Funds. Since October 2011, an architectural trail guide, the Brno Architectural Manual (BAM), has been available for all interested parties, containing an online database, a printed map, and orientation signage. This unique project enables architecture enthusiasts to obtain detailed information about the architectural development of Brno from 1918 to 1945. It thus represents a comprehensive system mapping the architectural and urban development of the city and its cultural and social background. The author and expert guarantor of the project is architectural historian and director of the House of Arts of the City of Brno, Rostislav Koryčánek. Co-authors of the Brno Architectural Trails concept are architectural historians Petra Hlaváčková and Šárka Svobodová.

From October 11, 2011, a database of 400 architectural objects with details about their exact address, GPS coordinates, nearby public transport stops, and their heritage protection and public accessibility will be open to the general public and professionals on the website www.bam.brno.cz. All available information is provided in three language versions (Czech, English, and German). The texts, created by a team of art historians and architects (Petra Hlaváčková, Lucie Valdhansová, Šárka Svobodová, and Jakub Kopec), also capture a brief history of these buildings, the circumstances of their creation, and the life stories of their owners and architects. Expert consultations in the text creation were provided by Jan Tabor (forum experimentelle architektur, Vienna), Milena Flodrová, Lenka Kudělková (Museum of the City of Brno), and Jindřich Chatrný (Museum of the City of Brno).

The database also includes audio recordings of individual entries and city districts available for download, for which sound direction was handled by Radovan Lipus and the conceptualization and processing by multimedia artist Jiří Suchánek. The sound recordings were narrated by actors from the Brno HaDivadlo, Simona Peková and Cyril Drozda. Introductions to individual routes through city districts were narrated by personalities associated with the Brno cultural scene, including Arnošt Goldflam, Milena Flodrová, Jiří Kratochvil, Miloš Štědroň, Lenka Zogatová, Petr Minařík, Ivan Ruller, Zdeněk Müller, Jaroslav Rudiš, Adéla Elbel, and Zuzana Fuksová (Čokovoko). The database also includes planning documentation and period photographs; the author of the current photographs of the objects is architect and photographer Barbora Ponešová. The website also contains an interactive map of Brno, which will allow easy searching for objects and planning thematic walks along one of the nine proposed routes or creating one's own architectural trail.

Predesigned architectural walks through individual city districts are also available to the residents of Brno, as well as domestic and foreign visitors, in printed form as a map. Signage will also be provided on the sidewalk in front of the objects containing the building code and the website. This allows for simple access to information about the object or the opportunity to listen to its story directly on the streets of Brno, for example, via a web browser on a mobile phone. The visual design of all parts of the project was created by the graphic studio 2011 Designers (Sébastien Bohner, Petr Bosák, Robert Jansa, Adam Macháček).

In the spring of 2012, a printed BAM guide will also be published, which will offer already pre-designed routes with texts and photographic documentation, thus complementing the existing database, map, and signage. The Brno Architectural Manual can become an important tool for popularizing the unique architectural wealth of the city of Brno and for developing international tourism. The authors of the Brno Architectural Manual plan to expand it in the future to include buildings from the second half of the 19th century to the present day.

BAM Information Points (from October 11, 2011):
Information about the project, access to the online database, maps, and guides are available here, and audio players with recordings for individual objects can be borrowed.

House of Arts of the City of Brno Malinovského nám. 2 Tue–Sun 10 AM–6 PM [email protected] www.dum-umeni.cz

Tourist Information Center Radnická 8, 2 - from October 2011 Mon–Fri 8 AM–6 PM, Sat, Sun 9 AM–5 PM [email protected] www.ticbrno.cz

The ceremonial launch of the BAM project will take place on October 11, 2011, at 6 PM at the House of Arts on Malinovského nám. 2.