Josef Hoffmann's house in the town Brtnice
The large ancestral and childhood house of the architect Josef Hoffmann is in the centre of the town. The architect's great-grandfather Franz Hoffmann moved into it in the 1780s. From a young age, Hoffmann spent most of the year away from the house but would often return, spending his summers there. His parents having died, he made subtle alterations to it in 1910–11, redecorating its interior and keeping much of the furnishings but also adding some of his own work. He and his sisters returned to it every summer until 1945, when it was seized by the (Soviet) Red Army and subsequently confiscated by the state and used as a "Workers' House". However, a plaque commemorating Hoffmann was placed on the house as early as 1970, and extensive work to strengthen the foundations and reinforce the vaults was done from 1974 to 1980. Following a 1992 exhibition in Brtnice on Hoffmann's work mounted by the town and MAK (Vienna), the house was turned into a permanent exhibition space.[2] From then on, an ambitious programme of refurbishing the building to Josef Hoffmann's design was carried out; this was completed in 2003. From 2006, the building has been administered by the Moravian Gallery in Brno, with the assistance of MAK.[3]

It is also possible to visit the chateau. The town Brtnice is the historical zona.

It is 2,5 hours to drive from Prague.
It is a 9 hour round trip.

Josef Hoffmann was born in 1870, in the town Brtnice. He died in May 7, 1956, in Vienna, in Austria. He was an Austrian architect and designer of consumer goods.
Josef Hoffmann studied at the Higher State Crafts School in Brno and then he worked with the local military planning authority in Würzburg. Thereafter he studied at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna with Karl Freiherr von Hasenauer and Otto Wagner, graduating with a Prix de Rome in 1895. In Wagner's office, he met Joseph Maria Olbrich, and together they founded the Vienna Secession in 1897 along with artists Gustav Klimt, and Koloman Moser. He taught at the University of Applied Arts Vienna. With the Secession, Hoffmann developed strong connections with other artists. He designed installation spaces for Secession exhibitions and a house for Moser which was built from 1901-1903.
However, he soon left the Secession in 1905 along with other stylist artists due to conflicts with realist naturalists over differences in artistic vision and disagreement over the premise of Gesamtkunstwerk.[2] With the banker Fritz Wärndorfer and the artist Koloman Moser he established the Wiener Werkstätte, which was to last until 1932. He designed many products for the Wiener Werkstätte of which designer chairs, most notably "Sitzmaschine" Chair, a lamp, and sets of glasses have reached the collection of the Museum of Modern Art,[3] and a tea service has reached the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Hoffmann's style eventually became more sober and abstract and it was limited increasingly to functional structures and domestic products. In 1906, Hoffmann built his first great work on the outskirts of Vienna, the Sanatorium Purkersdorf . Compared to the Moser House, with its rusticated vernacular roof, this was a great advancement towards abstraction and a move away from traditional Arts and Crafts and historicism. This project served as a major precedent and inspiration for the modern architecture that would develop in the first half of the 20th century, for instance the early work of Le Corbusier. It had a clarity, simplicity, and logic that foretold of a Neue Sachlichkeit.
Through contacts with Adolphe Stoclet, who sat on the supervisory board of the Austro-Belgischen Eisenbahn-Gesellschaft, he was commissioned to build the Palais Stoclet in Brussels from 1905 to 1911 for this wealthy banker and railway financier. This masterpiece of Jugendstil, was an example of Gesamtkunstwerk, replete with murals in the dining room by Klimt and four copper figures on the tower by Franz Metzner. In 1907, Hoffmann was co-founder of the Deutscher Werkbund, and in 1912 of the Österreichischer Werkbund. After World War II, he took on official tasks, that of an Austrian general commissioner with the Venice Biennale and a membership in the art senate.
Some of Hoffmann's domestic designs can still be found in production today, such as the Rundes Modell cutlery set that is manufactured by Alessi. Originally produced in silver the range is now produced in high quality stainless steel. Another example of Hoffmann’s strict geometrical lines and the quadratic theme is the iconic Kubus Armchair. Designed in 1910, it was presented at the International Exhibition held in Buenos Aires on the centennial of Argentinean Independence known as May Revolution. Hoffmann's constant use of squares and cubes earned him the nickname "Quadratl-Hoffmann" (little square Hoffmann).

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