The exhibition Gunma Prefecture - Land of Silk presents student projects of the conversion of the former Tomioka factory into a cultural center. You can view the study in the Gallery of Customs in the garden of Villa Löw-Beer in Brno.

It all started in 2010 when Prof. Ing. arch. Helena Zemánková, CSc., expert on industrial heritage and at the same time head of the studio at the Faculty of Architecture, invited by Gunma Prefecture (one of the administrative units of Japan) to a symposium and meeting of domestic and European experts preparing to register the silk factory on the World Heritage List UNESCO. The negotiations ensured cooperation between the FA BUT and the prefecture management. The students spent the entire semester as part of the studio teaching on new possibilities of using the former spinning mill Tomioka Silk Mill.

The former silk spinning mill in the city of Tomioka, northwest of Tokyo, is a Japanese cultural monument that was inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List in 2014. The raw silk production complex was built in the second half of the 18th century, as the first factory in Japan during the modernization period. The equipment with modern machines imported from France marked a significant progress not only in the process of transition from manual production of silk to its industrial production, but also in the overall modernization of the Japanese economy. The factory, which was created in cooperation between French specialists and Japanese architects, is therefore one of the world's unique.

The results of student works with proposals for how to revive the factory were exhibited in 2013 directly in the Tomioka factory and enjoyed great interest from visitors. Today you can see them in Brno, in the gallery in the garden of Villa Löw-Beer, which once belonged to Alfred Löw-Beer, a prominent textile entrepreneur. The garden also directly adjoins the grounds of Villa Tugendhat.

The exhibition can be visited until August 25, 2022. The gallery is open daily except Mondays from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., admission is free.