Hotel Passage

The historic Hotel Passage, built on the site of a demolished workers' colony known as Šmálka, is a dominant feature on Lidická street. 

In December 1928, the luxurious Hotel Passage was opened on Brno’s Lidická street (then Nová street), with the design and layout of the building by the architect Bohuslav Fuchs. The magnificent structure, equipped with the latest modern facilities, cost an incredible 20 million crowns and was the work of the Brno builder Antonín Müller. Müller was inspired by luxury hotels abroad, particularly in Switzerland. The highest floor, set back from the street front, was reserved for staff and a modern laundry and drying room. The hotel was built according to the most up-to-date construction, operational, and hygienic principles. After nationalization in 1948, the hotel was re-named Slovan. 

The five-storey building, in the shape of a narrow irregular quadrangle, is intersected by a passageway that connects Mášova street with Lidická. Several interconnected wings of the hotel are oriented around the covered courtyard and passageway. Following the reconstruction and modernization of the hotel, which began in 2019, it returned to its original name, Passage. Situated in the centre of Brno, the hotel offers more than a hundred individually designed rooms, a restaurant, and a large congress centre.

The building’s visual style is dominated by glass and wood. The rooms are in a modern, elegant style. The conference spaces are among the largest in Brno, with seven halls offering generous capacity and flexible layouts, all with natural light. The hotel also features the à la carte Passage Restaurant. The building includes covered parking. IN the course of the reconstruction, the building was enlivened with unique installations by leading artists. The glass façade features three basic linear ornaments, arranged in two intersecting directions. The ornament directions are derived from the right-angles of Functionalist architecture, with horizontal and vertical lines, wave patterns, zig-zag lines, battlement lines, circles, triangles, and squares. The owners aim to support Czech companies as much as possible, so most of the hotel’s furnishings are from Czech manufacturers.