Authors' Reading Month

The Hotel International in Brno, is one of the most important and best preserved buildings in the Brussels style in the Czech Republic. The eleven-story hotel was built between 1959 - 1962 designed by Ernest Krejza and Milos Kramoliše. The building is inspired by the style of Brazilian architect Oscar Niemeyer, There are also features of late functionalism. The hotel was opened on 29 June 1962. From its inception to 24 December 2013, the building was a cultural monument. The hotel was operated from 1962 to 1989 by the state company Inter Brno,. At the time of opening of the hotel had 301 rooms with a capacity of 697 people. It had about 300 employees. After the Velvet Revolution in 1989, the hotel was privatized and ownership passed to Hotel International Brno, Inc., founded in 1992.

Brno ( BUR-noh, Czech: [ˈbr̩no] ; German: Brünn [bʁʏn] ) is a city in the South Moravian Region of the Czech Republic. Located at the confluence of the Svitava and Svratka rivers, Brno has about 390,000 inhabitants, making it the second-largest city in the Czech Republic after the capital, Prague, and one of the 100 largest cities of the EU. The Brno metropolitan area has almost 700,000 inhabitants.Brno is the former capital city of Moravia and the political and cultural hub of the South Moravian Region. It is the centre of the Czech judiciary, with the seats of the Constitutional Court, the Supreme Court, the Supreme Administrative Court, and the Supreme Public Prosecutor's Office, and a number of state authorities, including the Ombudsman, and the Office for the Protection of Competition. Brno is also an important centre of higher education, with 33 faculties belonging to 13 institutes of higher education and about 62,000 students.Brno Exhibition Centre is among the largest exhibition centres in Europe. The complex opened in 1928 and established the tradition of large exhibitions and trade fairs held in Brno. Brno hosts motorbike and other races on the Masaryk Circuit, a tradition established in 1930, of which the Road Racing World Championship Grand Prix is one of the most prestigious races. Another cultural tradition is an international fireworks competition, Ignis Brunensis, which attracts tens of thousands of visitors to each display.The most visited sights of the city include the Špilberk Castle and fortress and the Cathedral of Saints Peter and Paul on Petrov hill, two medieval buildings that dominate the cityscape and are often depicted as its traditional symbols. The other large preserved castle near the city is Veveří Castle by Brno Reservoir. Another architectural monument of Brno is the functionalist Villa Tugendhat, which was added to the UNESCO list of World Heritage Sites in 2001. One of the natural sights nearby is the Moravian Karst. The city is a member of the UNESCO Creative Cities Network and was designated a "City of Music" in 2017.

The siege of Brno, which occurred from 3 May 3 to 23 August 1645, was the second Swedish siege of the city of Brno in the last years of the Thirty Years' War. The Brno garrison, consisting of 500 soldiers and about 1,000 Brno residents, successfully defended the city against about 28,000 soldiers of General Lennart Torstensson. The success of the defenders was the starting point of a brilliant career for their commander, Jean-Louis Raduit de Souches, in the service of the Habsburgs; the siege kept the Swedish army occupied for several months. This Austrian victory ultimately contributed to Brno becoming the metropolis of Moravia, at the expense of the conquered Olomouc.

Brno-střed (lit. 'Brno-Center') is one of the 29 city districts of Brno, the second largest city in the Czech Republic. It consists of the cadastral territories of Brno-město (the historic center of the city), Staré Brno, Stránice, Štýřice and Veveří and parts of Černá Pole, Pisárky, Trnitá and Zábrdovice. Its extent thus overlaps to a certain extent with the area of the city of Brno in the years 1850–1919 (the so-called Inner Brno). The cadastral area is 15 km2. The city district was established on November 24, 1990, its office is located in Brno-město. Over 70,000 people live here, also making it the most populated city district in Brno. Most of the territory of the district lies between the rivers Svratka and Svitava. For the purposes of the senate elections, Brno-střed is included in electoral district number 59 of Brno-City District.

The Cathedral of Saints Peter and Paul (Czech: Katedrála svatého Petra a Pavla) is a Roman Catholic cathedral located on the Petrov hill in the Brno-střed district of the city of Brno in the Czech Republic. It is commonly referred to locally as simply "Petrov". It is the seat of the Diocese of Brno and a national cultural monument that is one of the most important pieces of architecture in South Moravia. The interior is mostly Baroque in style, while the exterior shell is Gothic that dates mostly from the 14th century, and its impressive 84-metre-high towers were constructed to the Gothic Revival designs of the architect August Kirstein between 1901 and 1909. The original cathedral site dates to the 11th century.

The Basilica of the Assumption of Our Lady (Czech: Bazilika Nanebevzetí Panny Marie) in Old Brno Abbey is a high Gothic, monumental convent temple. It was founded in 980-1020 by the unknown lord or monarch in Moravia. It was built on the site of an ancient sanctuary from the late 10th century in a short time in the years 1323 to 1334 at the instigation of Queen Elizabeth Richeza. It is the best preserved stylistically coherent and unified temple in Lands of Bohemian Crown.

The Brno astronomical clock (Czech: Brněnský orloj) is a black stone monument in Brno, Czech Republic. It is situated at Náměstí Svobody, the main square in the Brno City Centre. The monument was proposed by the mayor of Brno, Roman Onderka, and it was created by Oldřich Rujbr and Petr Kameník. Every day at 11:00 AM, the clock releases a glass marble, which spectators can catch from one of four openings in the monument and take with them as a souvenir. The clock was unveiled on September 18, 2010, for the 365th anniversary of Brno's resistance to the Swedish siege during the Thirty Years War. Although the monument is publicly known as an astronomical clock (orloj), it is only a clock. Construction of the clock took three years, at a cost of approximately 12 million CZK.While in media the monument is usually called the astronomical clock or Brno astronomical clock, it has a reputation for its phallic appearance. Officially, it's known as a clockwork machine (hodinový stroj).

The Parnas Fountain is a fountain in Zelný trh square in Brno, Czech Republic. It is one of the most notable water fountains and baroque architectural monuments in Brno. It is a landmark of the square, located roughly in the middle of the square. Designed by Johann Bernhard Fischer von Erlach, it was built in 1690–1695 by Adam Tobiáš Kracker of Vienna.

Moravské zemské muzeum (English: Moravian Museum) is a museum in Brno in the Czech Republic. It is the second-largest and second-oldest museum in the country. Its collections include several million objects from many fields of science and culture.

Labyrinth under Vegetable Market (Czech: Labyrint pod Zelným trhem) is a system of underground corridors and cellars in the historical centre of the city of Brno, in the Czech Republic. The underground lies beneath Zelný trh, one of oldest squares in the city, and originally served for food keeping, beer brewing, maturing of wine in barrels, and other things. Some cellars were founded in the Middle Ages, but most of them dates back to the baroque era. The cellars were not all connected together until 2009 when they underwent a major reconstruction, and since 2011 they are opened public. The biggest cellar is almost 23 metres (75 ft) long and its height varies from 3.5 metres (11 ft) to 4 metres (13 ft), and the deepest cellar is 13 metres (43 ft) under the surface.

The Orel ("eagle" in Czech) is a Moravia-based Czech youth movement and gymnastics organization which emerged between 1896–1909 as Catholic Church-supported competitor of another Czech sport movement Sokol (founded 1862), oriented more nationalistic and rather anti-Catholic. Orel movement, defining itself as "Christian sport organization", still exists and currently has about 19,000 members. Since 1921 is member of international sport association FICEP. Party always cooperated in close with Moravian-Silesian Christian Social Party and later with the Czechoslovak People's Party. A similar organization with the same name was organized also in the Slovene Lands and in Croatia, where it successfully competed with the local Sokol movement. It was dissolved in the early 1930s by the following dictatorship in the Kingdom of Yugoslavia.

The Moravian Gallery in Brno (Czech: Moravská galerie v Brně) is the second largest art museum in the Czech Republic, established in 1961 by merging of two older institutions. It is situated in five buildings: Pražák Palace, Governor's Palace, Museum of Applied Arts, Jurkovič House and Josef Hoffmann Museum. Since 1963 the gallery has organized the International Biennial of Graphic Design Brno (Czech: Mezinárodní bienále grafického designu Brno).