Mahen Theatre
Coordinates: 49°11′47″N 16°36′47″E / 49.19639°N 16.61306°E Mahen Theatre (Czech: Mahenovo divadlo) is a Czech theatre situated in the city of Brno. Mahen Theatre, built as German Deutsches Stadttheater in 1882, was one of the first public buildings in the world lit entirely by electric light. It was built in a combination of Neo-renaissance, Neo-baroque and Neoclassical architectural styles.
The city theatre Reduta in Brno burned down in 1870, and the city council decided to build a new theatre building within a short time period. Thanks to the efforts of then mayor Gustav Winterholler, the decision was taken to build a bigger and better theatre at the place of Obstplatz (today's Malinovský square). The commission was assigned to the renowned Vienna architectural studio Fellner and Helmer. The studio was specialized in projects of theatre buildings. Around 1880, their modern type of theatre building was considered as a model.
The founding stone was laid on July 18, 1881. The construction went smoothly, taking only 16 months from start to opening of the theatre. During the construction it was necessary to change the building's inner disposition several times. The main reason for this was the devastating fires which were affecting European theatres at the time. In March 1881, a fire in the Théâter Royal in Nice killed almost 200 people. In August 1881, a fire destroyed the copper dome, the auditorium and stage of the National Theatre in Prague. The same year, another fire in Ringtheater in Vienna killed at least 384. The builders of the new theatre in Brno decided to take action in order to avoid similar incidents. New exits and additional side stairways were included in the plans. However, the most important decision was to replace the proposed gas lighting with a new invention: the electric light. In the middle of 1881, Brno city council negotiated a contract with the Edison Electric Light Company. The plans were designed by Thomas Edison himself, and the project was constructed by French and Austrian manufacturers, under the supervision of Edison's assistant Francis Jehl. The power station had to be built in a distant place, almost 300m away from the theatre, to ensure noise minimization. Amongst other things, the equipment of the power station consisted of four large dynamos imported from New York.
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