The exhibition will present the Brno textile industry (wool industry) and the phenomenon of Brno once known as the Moravian Manchester. Attention will be paid to urbanistic transformations connected with the building of textile industry in several locations (Cejl, Tkalcovská, Radlas, Dornych, Trnitá, Křenová, Lidická and Václavská streets), the most important enterprises and their owners (Offermann, Strakosch, Schmal, Schoeller, Redlich, Löw-Beer, Teuber, Stiassni and others), the extensive textile production of which stimulated the establishment of further industrial branches (engineering, chemical industry). The exhibition will also convey the stories ofVlněna andMosilana, two major textile factories that came into existence through the merging of several enterprises established by German or Jewish industrialists (Stiassni, Neumark, Brück & Engelsman, Löw-Beer, Skene, Hecht, Kohn and others; the Czech Klein company was an exception) and were later nationalized.
In addition, the exhibition will focus on wool production in Brno, the assortment of which comprised high-quality cloth for the manufacture of everyday clothing, as well as for uniforms of armies of several European countries. Some factories even specialized in the manufacture of military cloth - for example, the Offermann factory supplied its fabrics to Serbian, Romanian, Turkish, Greek and Egyptian armies. In the interwar period when there were around 40 large wool factories in the city, Brno production of quality woollen fabrics successfully competed with British companies.
The context of the Brno textile industry will also involve the Moravian Museum of Applied Arts, the establishment of which was initiated by leading Brno textile industrialists of the period and their efforts to support local businessmen and entrepreneurs through the museum's activities and acquisitions.