Slavonic Teachers’ Institute (now the Faculty of Architecture of Brno University of Technology) and Leoš Janáček
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Janáček taught at the institute for about 30 years
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His father-in-law was the institute’s director
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Features a plaque with a bust of the composer
Janáček attended the institute as both student and teacher
Janáček’s father was a teacher and wanted his son to follow the same path. After Janáček finished his education at the Augustinian Monastery and then at the German grammar school, he continued on to Slovanský ústav ku vzdělání učitelů (the Slavonic Teachers’ Institute), which at the time was at the Minorite monastery in what is now Minoritská Street. In 1876, he became a teacher at the institute and was put in charge of music productions. In 1878, the institute moved to a building in Pořící Street in Staré Brno (Old Brno), where it remained until the end of World War II. For the occasion, Janáček composed and produced Slavnostní sbor ku svěcení nové budovy (A Ceremonial Chorus for the Consecration of the New Building). In the institute he even met his future wife. The institute’s director, Emilian Schulz, lived with his family in the back part of the institute. Janáček first gave piano lessons to his daughter, and then they married soon after in 1881.
Today the site of the former Teachers’ Institute hosts two buildings: the historical one from 1876 and a newer part built in 1963. It became the location of the Faculty of Architecture in 1956 when Vysoké učení technické v Brně (the Brno University of Technology) was established. The building has a memorial plaque with a bronze bust of Leoš Janáček created by Zdeněk Tomáš Makovský.