Ferdinand Hrach

 After graduating from Vienna’s Technical University, Hrach spent several semesters at the city’s Academy of Fine Arts. He spent 1887–1893 as an assistant at the Technical University’s Department of Civil Engineering and Architecture while simultaneously working as an independent architect. In 1893, he accepted an invitation to teach at the German Technical University in Brno, where he remained as a professor until 1932. With his move to Brno, he switched to an academic career. He was twice appointed dean of the Faculty of Civil Engineering and the newly established Department of Civil Engineering and Architecture. He also served two terms as the school’s rector. At the same time, he was still active as an architect, drafting a number of public and private buildings. Thanks to these activities and his professional involvement in the fields of heritage preservation and urban planning, he was a prominent figure of German society in early twentieth-century Brno. In 1939, Hrach and his wife Sophie (née Schipka) registered as ethnically German, and they left Brno at the end of the Second World War. Hrach died on 29 April 1946 in the Lower Austrian town of Kleinzell.

Šárka Svobodová

Architect
Ferdinand Hrach

Date of birth
2.1.1862 Vídeň

Deceased
29.4.1946 Kleinzell

Literature
Šárka Svobodová, Architekt Ferdinand Hrach a jeho činnost v Brně, Brno 2007