Brno packs a UNESCO functionalist villa, the country's oldest applied-arts museum and two grand opera houses into a city you can cross on foot. Its art scene runs from 1930s Bauhaus rigour to raw post-industrial galleries.
Mies van der Rohe's 1930 steel-frame villa, UNESCO-listed since 2001. The onyx wall glows amber in low sun and the plate-glass windows sink into the floor. Tue–Sun 10:00–18:00; timed tours only, booked online weeks ahead.
Dušan Jurkovič built this 1906 Art Nouveau folk-revival house as his own home, then furnished every inch of it himself. Restored by the Moravian Gallery in 2011; the built-in cabinetry and hall fireplace are original.
The modern and contemporary wing of the country's second-largest art museum: Czech Cubism, Toyen and the Devětsil avant-garde, plus rotating shows across four floors of a neo-Renaissance palace on Husova.
Josef Kranz designed this 1929 functionalist café at 23, with a spiral staircase and ribbon windows still intact after a careful 2011 restoration. It sits in a residential grid of interwar villas in Černá Pole.
Built 1882 by Vienna's Fellner & Helmer, it was the first theatre building in Europe wired for Edison's electric light — Edison himself visited in 1911. Guided backstage tours cover the gas-era machinery and gilded auditorium.
The composer's garden cottage behind the old organ school on Smetanova, where he wrote Jenůfa's later revisions and The Cunning Little Vixen. His desk, harmonium and manuscripts sit as he left them in 1928.
A purpose-built 1962 pavilion in Pisárky park devoted to Moravian prehistory, dominated by a full-scale mammoth. Holds casts of the Venus of Dolní Věstonice, the world's oldest known ceramic figure, from 29,000 BC.
The largest opera house in the country, opened 1965 with a 1,300-seat hall and a glass-and-travertine foyer. Its repertoire leans hard on Janáček — Kátya Kabanová and The Makropulos Affair return most seasons.
The only museum in the world dedicated to Romani history, founded 1991 by Romani activists and now state-run. Sits on Bratislavská in the Cejl district, historically Brno's Romani quarter. Tue–Sun 10:00–18:00.
A Kounicova neighbourhood café named after the interwar lightbulb firm, popular with Masaryk University staff. Serves Moravian wines by the glass from Velké Bílovice and Mikulov alongside a short daily lunch menu.
Private contemporary gallery in the surviving hall of the Vaňkovka ironworks, founded 1865. Three exhibition spaces show mid-career Czech and Slovak artists; the raw brick and roof trusses are left exposed. Entry is free.
A cellar club on Sukova running live jazz, funk and experimental sets most nights since 1998, plus a ground-floor bar that draws the art-school crowd. Programme skews to Brno and Bratislava players rather than touring acts.