In the early 20th century, Minská Street (formerly Palackého) on the eastern edge of Žabovřesky began to see the construction of apartment buildings (on the northern side of the street all the way to today’s Chládkova in what was then a part of the Brno-Křížová cadastral district) as well as smaller family houses and villas (on the southern side of the street in Žabovřesky). In 1915, the master builder Bartoloměj Novák and his wife Perpetua built the Bio Aladin cinema on an empty lot between the two Art Nouveau villas at Minská 17 and 21. The design was apparently drawn up in late 1913 by the Brno architect Bohumír František Antonín Čermák, and the cinema opened on 29 May 1915, usually showing four screenings a day. Novák was killed in 1917 on the battlefield of the First World War, and the cinema was subsequently purchased by Kamila Súčková, who operated it as the Kino Lucerna. The projection licence changed hands repeatedly over the subsequent years. First, it passed to the Středoškolská Menza association in 1921, then to the state during the Protectorate, and after 1945 to Czechoslovak State Film. Today, the cinema belongs to the city district, and the Kino Lucerna is Brno’s oldest cinema still in operation.
Čermák’s design has undergone numerous changes over the years, mainly during the modernization of its technology, facilities and auditorium. A surviving photograph shows its appearance in 1931, when a glass roof on narrow metal pillars (built after a fire in 1928) stood in front of the main elevation. Along the eaves, the roof transitioned into a massive rounded cornice, which was undoubtedly part of Čermák’s initial design. The symmetrical facade with a pair of doors (one entrance, one exit) to facilitate foot traffic was Čermák’s as well. The cinema’s last major renovation and modernization was in 2011, when the metal skirting of the cornice was removed from the 1980s facade and the cinema’s name was moved to the upper part of the building. Although not much remains of Čermák’s bold modernist design, the Kino Lucerna is a unique example of a still functioning single-screen movie house in Brno, located amidst the single-storey Art Nouveau urban fabric of Žabovřesky.
Matěj Kruntorád