In a Czech city, '30s modernism lives on
BRNO, Czech Republic: The first thing I bought on a recent trip to Brno was a pack of souvenir photos from the 1933 Chicago World's Fair that I found in a little antique shop I dipped into while waiting for a tram.
It turned out to be an oddly fitting purchase.
The pictures showed how the Chicago Fair, dubbed a Century of Progress, had projected a futuristic vision through striking examples of sleek, Modernist architecture.
Brno, the capital of Moravia and the Czech Republic's second-largest city, is a long way from Chicago. But in the 1920s and '30s, it was one of the hotbeds of Modernism in Central Europe.
Many austere gems of Modernist, or Functionalist, style still stud its central streets and residential hillsides. On this trip, seeking them out became a leitmotif of my walks around the city.
Read entire article at International Herald Tribune
It turned out to be an oddly fitting purchase.
The pictures showed how the Chicago Fair, dubbed a Century of Progress, had projected a futuristic vision through striking examples of sleek, Modernist architecture.
Brno, the capital of Moravia and the Czech Republic's second-largest city, is a long way from Chicago. But in the 1920s and '30s, it was one of the hotbeds of Modernism in Central Europe.
Many austere gems of Modernist, or Functionalist, style still stud its central streets and residential hillsides. On this trip, seeking them out became a leitmotif of my walks around the city.