Brtnice

Museum of Josef Hoffmann

The large ancestral and childhood house of the architect Josef Hoffmann is in the centre of the town. The architect's great-grandfather Franz Hoffmann moved into it in the 1780s. From a young age, Hoffmann spent most of the year away from the house but would often return, spending his summers there. His parents having died, he made subtle alterations to it in 1910–11, redecorating its interior and keeping much of the furnishings but also adding some of his own work. He and his sisters returned to it every summer until 1945, when it was seized by the (Soviet) Red Army and subsequently confiscated by the state and used as a "Workers' House". However, a plaque commemorating Hoffmann was placed on the house as early as 1970, and extensive work to strengthen the foundations and reinforce the vaults was done from 1974 to 1980.

Following a 1992 exhibition in Brtnice on Hoffmann's work mounted by the town and MAK (Vienna), the house was turned into a permanent exhibition space.[2] From then on, an ambitious programme of refurbishing the building to Josef Hoffmann's design was carried out; this was completed in 2003. From 2006, the building has been administered by the Moravian Gallery in Brno, with the assistance of MAK.[3]

• Waldstein and Collalto rennaisance castle above the town
• Town hall, a former renaissance house
• Church of Saint Jacob, baroque rebuilt
• Former Minims (Paolans') monastery and church dedicated to St. Boromeus and blessed Giuliana
• One rennaisance brick bridge and two baroque bridges over the Brtnice River
• Jewish cemetery in the northern outskirts
• Castle ruin Ruckstein (Rokštejn) about 5 km north-east from the town, founded around 1280