Femina beauty salon

In 1923 Brno architects Jaroslav Grunt, Jindřich Kumpošt and Bohuslav Fuchs visited the first Bauhaus School exhibition in Weimar presenting reforms in the concept of architecture and crafts. The presentation of the comprehensive teaching of design, architecture and innovative building technologies impressed Jaroslav Grunt, thirty years old at the time. However, in his own words, he was fascinated most by a performance of the Triadic Ballet by Oskar Schlemmer, a choreographer and dance innovator at the Bauhaus who taught physical exercise leading to a better understanding of the manifestations of the human body. His Triadic Ballet was based on the interconnectedness of form, colour and space. Dancers wearing costumes in the shape of a sphere, cube and pyramid in red, blue and yellow performed movements along a circle, diagonal and ellipsis in order to express the length, width and depth of space. Grunt's passion for avant-garde art principles defined in this way was manifested in his design for the facade of the Femina beauty products shop on the corner of Česká and Skrytá streets in the centre of Brno. Emma Javůrková-Widhalmová, the owner of the shop, enjoyed the geometrically shaped portal looking out on Skrytá Street and the shop windows enhanced by white structures of iron T-profiles, which also held blue and white advertising banners. The interior of the shop was furnished with not overly progressive Biedermeier-style furniture made at the UP Brno factories. However, none of the original equipment has been preserved; Grunt's design is only present in the no longer used portal and frames of the display windows.