Zábrdovice Municipal Spa

The construction of the Zábrdovice Municipal Spa began in 1931, based on a design by the renowned architect Bohuslav Fuchs. The spa operated year-round. 

The Zábrdovice Spa was originally founded in 1882. It featured three pools made of brick, filled with water from a small stream that flowed through the military hospital and emptied into a branch of the Svitava River. In 1929 the Brno municipal waterworks organized a competition for the construction of a new spa to replace the old facility located between the current Zábrdovická and Lazaretní streets. Bohuslav Fuchs’s winning design was executed between 1931 and 1932, with some modifications requested by the client. 

The basement housed machinery and technical facilities. On the raised ground floor were hydrotherapy areas, pools with warm and cold water, and hot-air and steam baths, which operated year-round and were supplied with therapeutic mud and water from the spa springs in Luhačovice in eastern Moravia. The mezzanine floor contained an inhalation department with a waiting room. The entrance hall featured a grand multi-flight staircase and two winter gardens. The building also included rooms for barbers and hairdressers, as well as a restaurant. On the upper floors were bath and shower facilities, which catered to everyday hygiene needs, as at the time of its construction, bathrooms and running water were not standard in Brno homes. A publicly accessible terrace was located on the roof of the restaurant in the southeast corner. In 1938, the winter gardens were replaced by rest areas for the bath department. 

Sometime before 1963, significant changes were made to the façade. The original simple steel strip windows with four panes were replaced by five-pane steel windows, and glass-block walls were added, likely to improve thermal insulation and address corrosion issues. However, the glass wall of the main entrance façade, covering waiting rooms, rest areas, and staircases, remained intact. 

Today, only the outdoor area is open to the public as a summer swimming pool. During Open House Brno, the interior spaces are also accessible to visitors.