Brno Exhibition Centre History +420 541 152 730 Výstaviště 1, 647 00 Brno rent@bvv.cz www.bvv.cz The incentive for building the Brno Exhibition Centre was the Contemporary Culture Exhibition in Czechoslovakia, held from May until September 1928 for the ten year jubilee of the independent republic. The majority of the local architects were involved in the projects for individual pavilions and the new complex became thanks to its size and urban approach the biggest and most modern Exhibition Centre in the Czechoslovakia before the war. Thanks to the Contemporary Culture Exhibition the organisers gained priceless experience that became an important precondition for the future development of the exhibition and trade fair activities in Brno. The first International trade fair in Brno, focused especially on machinery, took place on 6–20 September, 1959. 432 exhibitors from 29 countries introduced their exhibits classified in 41 areas. The originally general events during the past decades turned into a number of specialised trade fairs that make a base of the present exhibition programme. Up to these days the Brno Exhibition Centre presents a collection of functionalistic architecture that is gradually followed by other architects. The remarkable and unique especially from the technical point of view is especially the pavilion from 1959, a circular structure with a diameter 122 metres, two galleries and steel cupola 46 metres high.