Visual Art in the Housing Estates of Brno (1945–1989)

With special attention being paid to the development in the city of Brno, the dissertation focuses on the issue of applying artworks in Czechoslovak architecture after World War II. The main research questions – Why were in Czechoslovakia after 1945 artworks again integrated in architecture and what strategies were applied in the case of the newly built housing estates in the city of Brno? – are answered in two successive sections. First, the institutional background for application of art in architecture in the light of the events in Brno (1945–1993) is examined; the closing part is devoted to three case studies that illustrate local development in the period of socialist realism, creative release of the1960s and political normalization. The aim is to highlight the complexity of the examined subject and refute a popularly handed down conviction that integration of artworks into architecture in the period of socialism was motivated exclusively by the communist propaganda, and to show that the attempts to create a synthesis of art and architecture were also based both on earlier theoretical considerations about the educational function of art and its effect on humans and the need to improve poor economic situation of artists after World War II