Semilasso Cultural centre

Semilasso is located in the street Palacký no. 126 in the Brno district Královo Pole, at a crossroads with Kosmová Street. The name of the centre is not random - it has deep European roots dating back to the 19th century and the personality of a prominent Prussian nobleman.

The beginnings date back to the first half of the 19th century, when at the imperial road leading from Brno to Svitavy, Morgenstern's touring inn was established on the edge of the village of Ugartov. The construction was part of the Schaffgotsch estate. In the 1930s, the Prussian prince Hermann von Pückler-Muskau, the park maker and traveller who created the pseudonym Semilasso - the name derived from the French motto "Tout casse, tout passe, tout lasse" (everything breaks, everything passes, everything gets tired) meant "half rested." A year later, he created the pseudonym of Tutolasso from this experience. In 1836, the prince completed his travel document Semilasso in Africa, which became a period-reading hit and contained a fictional hero of the same name. The owner of the inn named the inn Zum Semilasso - At Semilassa - and became a local legend. The original inn developed into the cultural centre of Králová Pole, where social events took place in the decorated hall.

In 1869 the line of Brno horse-drawn trams ended here and it was built in the yard of the inn by one of three roads, but it only used it in an era of traction power. In 1900, the line was electrified. At the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries he grew up near a new cultural house in the style of historic eclectic architecture. The new building had a large hall, restaurant and garden. Since 1904 it was rented by the Royal Polish Workers' Association and the building was known as the Workers' House.

After World War II, the building was used for its purposes by the Královopolská engineering plant, subsequently managed by the District Cultural and Educational Centre Brno V. During the second half of the 20th century, the building underwent various reconstructions, especially poor court construction in the 1980s, leaving the original building a street wall with a facade. In 1999, the commemorative album of actor Karl Högra, who began his acting career, was revealed on Semilassu.

The last chapter was written by extensive reconstruction from 2002- 2003 according to the design of the architectural studio RAW. The restaurant and social hall were supplemented by a corner two-storey café with a glass tower, which became a new dominant feature of the building. The original inn on the adjacent parcel, dating back to the second half of the 18th century, was demolished in spring 2006. In his place he grew up in 2007-2009 apartment house Nové Semilasso. Semilasso itself has since been the property of Brno; it has been operated since 2004 by a private company Glanc.

Semilasso therefore represents a unique layer of European cultural history - the place where Central European nobility met Czech society, where it was a tram node and a working meeting. Visiting the centre allows you to feel the passage of historical epoch from the era of horse trams to current cultural traffic.