The area enclosed by today’s streets Rooseveltova, Dvořákova, Jezuitská and Kozí Streets was formerly the site of a Jesuit college, which was built in 1578. The Church of the Assumption of the Virgin Mary on Jezuitská Street was part of that extensive complex, which encompassed six courtyards. The entire complex was demolished during Brno’s clearance in 1904−1906, and two new streets (Mozartova and Beethovenova) were laid out on the site. Before the monumental Palace of Justice was built on Rooseveltova, several other locations were considered for it, including the area between náměstí 28. října and Kapitána Jaroše Avenue. In the end, following the Viennese model, a plot was chosen on the newly built ring road, where the grand palace is a prominent landmark.
The palace was built in 1906–1909 by the Brno builders Franz Pawlu and Josef Nebehosteny according to plans by the Viennese architect Alexander Wielemans von Monteforte. A graduate of the Vienna Academy, Wielemans had previously authored several other court buildings in Austria-Hungary (Vienna, Salzburg and Olomouc) and sought to perfect their form. For Brno, he chose the historicist style of the late Theresian Baroque, which recalled the golden age of Austrian bureaucracy.
The expansive square-shaped palace is built around two courtyards. Three avant-corps project from the facade on Rooseveltova, with the central one crowned by a large steel-framed cupola. The monumental building’s character is further underscored by its facade decoration. Its base, clad in large rectangular bossage blocks, spans the semi-underground floor and the first two above-ground floors. Above this are a two-storey bel étage and an attic floor lined with small square windows. The corner sections, each with three window bays, are slightly set back, thus adding yet another visual division to the long street facade. The bel étage is lined by a giant order of pilasters and is decorated with allegories of justice (scales and swords) placed inside medallions.
The entrance is flanked by two columns placed in front of the facade, on which stand Wielemans’s favourite motif of lions with shields. Above the main portal is a Palladian-style loggia. The Neo-Baroque dome is flanked by two obelisks and culminates in an imperial crown. Interestingly, this symbol of the Habsburg emperors survived the upheavals of both 1918 and 1945.
The entrance space is decorated with a pair of sculptural allegories of law and leads to a stair hall in the central wing separating the two courtyards. The triple-flight staircase is lined by a stone balustrade and decorated with a coffered ceiling. The palace is a double-pile building with long corridors around the perimeter of the courtyard and offices and chambers facing the street. Original interior details have been preserved in the form of the coffered doors, the glass partitions that create anterooms in front of the offices, the opulent furnishings and wood panelling in the chambers, and the free-standing furniture and filing cabinets. As in the rest of the building, the ceilings in some of the courtrooms are decorated with stucco coffering.
A large meeting room located on the first floor in the central avant-corps directly above the main vestibule has an irregular floor plan that follows the shape of the avant-corps and is decorated with Theresian crystal chandeliers. The court archive in the attic has retained its original furniture as well.
Soon after its completion in 1909, the building was made the headquarters of several judicial bodies of the Austrian Empire. It was home to the Moravian-Silesian High Court, the Provincial Court of Moravia and Silesia, the Brno Provincial Court for Commercial Affairs and the Moravian-Silesian High State Prosecutor’s Office. After 1919, the Czechoslovak Supreme Court was located here as well. In 1928, the High Provincial Court was renamed the Regional Court, and this court is located here to this day. In 2009, the Brno Municipal Court and the prosecutor’s office moved to the judicial complex on Renneská Avenue.
At the turn of the millennium, the building was the subject of a sensitive renovation project that fully respected and in no way disturbed its architectural value.
Martin Koplík