The monumental Renaissance revival building of the Museum of Applied Arts in Brno was built in the 19th century and houses the Moravian Gallery in Brno since 1961 after merging with the Picture Gallery of the Moravian Regional Museum, making it the largest institution of its kind in the Czech Republic. It holds a collection of applied arts from the Middle Ages to the present day composed of 13,000 glass, ceramic, porcelain, textile, furniture and metalware items.
The museum was founded in 1873 based on the model of the Vienna Museum of Art and Industry and opened to the public in 1883, making it one of the oldest of its kind in the world. Adapted after the Second World War according to the project of Bohuslav Fuchs, the last reconstruction was completed in 2021. Today the museum focuses on a new concept investigating the relationships between art, design and fashion through permanent and temporary exhibitions housed in the museum’s new facilities; designed exclusively by leading Czech designers.