TJ Tesla Sports and Swimming Complex

The TJ Tesla sports and swimming complex in Lesná is rightly considered one of Brno’s most striking Brutalist buildings. 

The Tesla sports complex was built at the instigation of Jiří Štětina, then Director of the Tesla sports and physical education association, who envisioned a venue tailor-made for its volleyball team as well as a swimming stadium for employees. The project was developed by Brno’s Stavoprojekt. Constructed between 1973 and 1982 as a community-driven effort under the “Action Z’” initiative, the building is the second-longest-running project in Czechoslovakia’s programme for the improvement of towns and municipalities (the longest being the construction of the Rondo sports hall in Brno). 

The complex features a sports hall, a gymnastics hall, a covered 25-metre swimming pool, a sauna, and an outdoor children’s paddling pool. It is distinguished by its two halls, which are roofed with a characteristic sagging cable structure supported by slender steel trusses held by metal masts. The building was designed by the architect Viktor Rudiš in collaboration with the structural engineer Zdeněk Musil, who was responsible for the cable roof system, and the architect Dagmar Glosová, who worked on the interior design and the integration of glazed panels into the building’s envelope; these glass elements follow the sagging shape of the cable roof and are subjected to its load. In contrast to the metal roof and extensive glazing, square ceramic tiles were used for both the exterior and interior cladding. 

Despite undergoing partial renovations, the structure has largely retained its original character. In 2001, the sports hall was fitted with a new floor covering as part of minor modernization efforts. In 2010, the heat exchanger station underwent reconstruction. 

The tour will take visitors to normally inaccessible areas of the building’s technical facilities.