The same point of view: MU Faculty of Science then and now - Building no. 9

According to archival records, Building no. 9 originally housed laundries, kitchens and similar facilities for the daily operation of the hospital. The chimney that served these facilities, which no longer exists, can be seen in the pre-war photograph below. In November 1944, an American bomb fell on the building and, after the war, it had to be completely rebuilt. While this is most obvious in the shape of the present roof, one could easily play that old favourite game of ‘find ten differences’. 

Photo: MU Archive, undated. 

Building no. 9 now houses the Department of Condensed Matter Physics and the so-called super clean rooms of the Semiconductor Laboratory, i.e. clean rooms used for silicon technology and microelectronics. In the past, the building has housed apartments for faculty service staff, including the secretary, fireman and inspector of the botanical garden, the offices of the Botanical Garden and the Department of Anthropology. At one point, a large part of the building was set aside for the Department of Biochemistry, where skeletons were stored in the soil and seeds were dried. After the Velvet Revolution, the building housed the first faculty buffet, where soup was served, the faculty canteen not having been built at that time. 

Photo: Libor Teplý, 2019.