It was the first foundry at universities in the former Czechoslovak Republic. Several works of art, which we pass by every day, were cast in its furnaces. And above all, it is the story of one exceptional personality: Professor František Píšek.

The story of the foundry at BUT cannot be told separately from the life story of František Píšek. Although he was born in Prague, he eventually connected most of his professional career with the Brno University of Technology. He brought to the school a unique combination of deep professional knowledge and extensive experience in industrial practice. Before joining the Czech Technical University in Brno, he worked for the Škoda Works in Pilsen, the Prague Iron and Steel Company in Dvůr Králové and other companies.

In 1921, Píšek was appointed associate professor of the newly established chair of mechanical technology II at the Czech Technical University in Brno, and three years later he became a full professor. This is where we date the beginning of foundry education at BUT. The first graduates of the Foundry Technology field completed their studies in 1929.

"Until the First World War, foundry was often ignored among engineering operations and also at university. It was not until after the First World War (...) that it was decided that empirical evidence would no longer suffice in the foundry, that it would be necessary to base foundry production on a scientific basis," recalls Píšek in his essay "Education in the Foundry Industry", the undated typewritten original of which can be found in the BUT Archive.

The fact is that at that time the foundries indeed operated more on the basis of many years of experience of the foremen who led them. It was not customary to use the latest scientific findings in this area. There was a lack of research, literature, professional articles. Already during his time in industrial companies, Píšek tried to remedy the situation, but in vain. He only got his chance at the Brno University of Technology.

The interwar years were not an easy period for Czech-language universities in Brno. Schools developed rapidly, experienced great freedom, and the number of applicants grew. At the same time, however, both the facilities and finances were insufficient. Just to give you an idea: in the beginning, the entire Institute of Mechanical Technology II had to fit into a single room with three windows. In the mid-1920s, the Department of Mechanical and Electrical Engineering required a new pavilion for machine shops and laboratories, the construction of which was the first of the requirements of the Brno University of Technology as early as 1925. The so-called Pavilion D was built for almost four million Czech crowns, and it was completed in the academic year 1927/28. On the ground floor of the building, there is also a laboratory foundry with two cupola rooms, a tilting crucible furnace and an electric oven, a drying chamber and moulding machines.

During the academic year, the rooms were used for lessons and during the school holidays, lectures and seminars for enthusiasts from industry were held here for one to two weeks. Professor Píšek thus fulfilled his vision of close cooperation between universities and industrial practice. In the years 1929–1930, Píšek even led the university as the rector, and in the pre-war years 1934–1935, he was the dean of the Department of Mechanical and Electrical Engineering for the second time (the first time he became the dean was in 1923–1924). Despite limited resources, he managed to build a top workplace in his field, which, in addition to the foundry, also consisted of other specialized laboratories, especially chemical and metallographic labs.

Píšek also increased the prestige of his field by founding the Czechoslovak Professional Foundry Association in 1923, which he chaired until 1945, and in 1926 he was also at the birth of the International Committee of Foundry Associations. He was an expert with a truly world-class reputation.

Unfortunately, the foundry's archive from the time of its beginnings has not been preserved, so the information about its operation is rather fragmentary. According to Otakar Franěk, author of the book History of the Czech Technical University in Brno, "the foundry was kept running by casting (with permission of the Ministry) artistic castings of cast iron and bronze." Píšek's colleagues thus renewed the tradition of the famous Blansko cast iron and the foundry became the centre of artistic casting in the city of Brno. Mainly plaques were cast, but also very valuable models. The level of castings and subsequent numbering and patination was so high that plaques from the Brno University Foundry were exhibited in 1933 at an exhibition of artistic castings in Prague at the Museum of Decorative Arts.

The entire country, as well as university employees and students, had their lives turned upside down by the German occupation and World War II. Professor Píšek showed that he really had "nerves of steel" and soon joined the anti-Nazi resistance. Together with four other colleagues, he founded the provincial branch of the national resistance movement, whose constituent meeting took place in March 1941 in the Passage Hotel in Brno, and another conspiratorial meeting took place in June of the same year directly in the laboratory of Professor Píšek. In September, however, the repressions following Heydrich's assassination hit the Czech lands hard and a wave of arrests began. The Gestapo also came to arrest Professor Píšek, who managed to escape and was hiding in illegality until the end of the war. Franěk even writes that Píšek "hid directly in Terezín under the windows of SS guards for the rest of the war".

After the end of the war, the foundry became part of the renewed Czech Technical University in Brno. From 1946, it produced castings from grey cast iron and non-ferrous metals – brass, bronze, tin and aluminium alloys, cast into sand moulds. The foundry produced medals, plaques, commemorative plaques, busts and smaller sculptures cast mainly in bronze. The castings bore the foundry's characteristic mark on the reverse side – an owl's head. One of the later casts is the bust of Prof. Písek by sculptor František Hořava, which has been located in front of the BUT building since 1975 and can now be found in the atrium of the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering in building A1. It is estimated that in the post-war period, more than a hundred artistic castings were created in the foundry of today's BUT.

After 1951, when the Brno University of Technology was struggling to survive and its foundry moved: first to the University of Civil Engineering, and in 1957 again to the newly established University of Technology, Faculty of Power Engineering. In 1960, a foundry and laboratories were built in Údolní Street. In the same year, Professor Píšek retired to a well-deserved retirement. He died on March 10, 1970 in Brno.

He did not live to see the last move of the foundry to the campus of the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering (now FSI) on the Pod Palackého vrchem campus. The Department of Foundry Engineering then formally moved between faculty institutes, until in 2004 it was anchored in today's Institute of Engineering Technology as the Department of Foundry. It continues not only to innovate the Foundry Technology master's study program but also to continuously modernize the laboratories and the foundry itself – since 2018, for example, the production of castings using the precision investment casting method has been introduced. Last year, the foundry hosted a very successful first year of an international course for specialists in this field and a repeat of the successful event is already being prepared.

Since the establishment of the Foundry Department, the faculty foundry has been producing artistic castings, which are now complemented by casts of complex shapes for prototype production and research. The local experts continue artistic casting to this day. For example, a pair of Fegurds, bronze figures of aliens by sculptor Václav Sigurson Kostohryz, who have been decorating the space in front of the Brno Observatory on Kraví hora since the spring of 2023, were cast – guess where? In the BUT foundry.

The article was published in the journal Události na VUT 1 | 2024/2025