Building work at the Faculty of Arts has proved a source of delight to historians. During work on the lift shaft on Friday 29 March workmen found an object in an entrance wall; it turned out to be a plaque commemorating the twentieth anniversary of the completion in 1872 of a city orphanage for boys. This was the original function of what today is Building A of the Faculty of Arts. The find was made doubly significant by the discovery behind the plaque of a metal box containing period documents.
“Having documented the find, because of ongoing building work we decided to remove it immediately,” said Irena Loskotová of the MU Institute of Archaeology and Museology. “Behind it we found a box containing a bundle of documents tied with red-and-white ribbon. So as not to damage these, we have not opened them out. We intend to hand them on to the Brno City Archive, which will prepare them for further examination.”
Regarding the fate of the commemorative plaque, which was unveiled at the orphanage in 1892, there were no records beyond 1918. Masaryk University acquired the building on its founding in 1919.
Loskotová added that historians had anticipated such a find on the basis of historical sources. And there may be two more such commemorative plaques at the Faculty. “I’m delighted by the find. And the documents may contain building plans, which would give us a lot of valuable information.”
The find is also important for a project called An Internet Encyclopaedia of the History of Brno, in which Masaryk University is involved. The encyclopaedia’s database now contains 225 monuments and 584 commemorative plaques. Miroslava Menšíková has long concerned herself with the mapping of the city’s commemorative plaques.
Once building work at the Faculty of Arts is complete, the plaque commemorating the twentieth anniversary of the orphanage will be returned to its original place. The work, which began in March last year, will continue until August 2014. The result will be a new building with six overground and two basement floors that will provide accommodation for underground parking, teaching space including multimedia classrooms and a depository for books connected with the existing Faculty library. A project of the Centre for the Advancement of the Liberal Arts (CARLA) includes the reconstruction of the building of the former orphanage and the landscaping of the courtyard.