Ernst Wiesner, an architect, lectured at the University of Liverpool
Ernst Wiesner, an architect, lectured at the University of Liverpool
The grave of a famous architect no one knew was buried in Allerton has been found and refurbished. A ceremony took place at Allerton Cemetery on Wednesday, January 21 to unveil a new memorial stone added to his grave to commemorate his life and work.
Ernst Wiesner was born on January 21, 1890 in Malacky, Slovakia, and was one of the leading architects of the interwar period in Brno, a city in the Czech Republic. He graduated from the Vienna Academy in 1913, under the tutelage of renowned Austrian architect Friedrich Ohmann, known for his major contributions to monumental and institutional architecture in Vienna and Prague.
During WWI, Ernst Wiesner served in an engineer brigade in Poland, Dalmatia and southern Tyrol. After the war, he set up his own atelier and his work ranged from private villas to major public buildings including the city crematorium built from 1925-1930, which remains a national cultural monument.
He designed other landmark buildings in Brno including the Villa Stiassni, the Villa Neumark, the headquarters of Czech Radio Brno, and the Morava Palace.
Wiesner was of German-Jewish descent and left Brno with the arrival of the Nazis in 1939 and fled to London. He was employed there by the Czech government in exile and supervised the reconstruction of damaged buildings. He was also an active member of the foreign anti-fascist resistance during the war.
From 1948 to 1950 he was a lecturer in the School of Architecture at the University of Oxford, before going on to lecture at the University of Liverpool until 1960. He stayed in the city for the rest of his life and was buried in Allerton Cemetery following his death on July 15, 1971.
For decades, his grave went largely unnoticed until Kateřina Konečná, the chateau manager of Villa Stiassni, began searching for Wiesner’s resting place. Her research led her to the Friends of Allerton Cemetery Facebook page which eventually led to his grave details, RC14 483, being rediscovered
In early 2025, the original tombstone was restored by Sarsfield Memorials Liverpool, with support from the South Moravian Region in the Czech Republic. Now a new memorial has been created beside Ernst Wiesner’s grave and has been assembled from authentic stone fragments taken directly from his buildings in Brno and installed permanently at Allerton Cemetery.
Ursula Sarsfield is the manager of Sarsfield Memorials Liverpool, a third generation business established in 1947 and the oldest family run monumental masons in Liverpool.
She told the ECHO: “We didn’t supply the original gravestone so for us to be involved in helping create something like this that is so personal and special is an honour and a very rewarding thing to be a part of.
“He had no children and his wife moved away from Liverpool and isn’t buried in this cemetery. It’s nice to know that he’s not been forgotten for what he did in his own country and also what he did for the people of Liverpool in his time working at the university.
“It’s also nice for the town of Brno to know and make sure that he’s still being recognised for everything that he did. Doing a memorial for anyone is always special but to do it for somebody whose family line has ended, whilst their work and life continues to be remembered and rediscovered, feels different
“By taking pieces of his past and combining it with where he lived out the rest of his days feels like his whole life has been cocooned into one piece, which is lovely.”
The selection and preparation of the stones was handled by stonemason Radim Skácel, with Kateřina Konečná’ helping him sort through the crates of stone.
Speaking to Radio Prague International, Kateřina said: “A delivery van accidentally knocked off part of the soffit a few years ago. At the time, I was furious with the driver but thanks to that accident, we can now use original sandstone from the villa.”
Architect Tomáš Růžička described the memorial as taking the form of a circle with nine differently coloured openings at its centre. These openings are filled with stones Wiesner could have personally touched during his lifetime.
Tomáš, told Radio Prague International: “It’s not a gravestone, but a reminder that he died far from home and this is Brno’s way of giving him part of the city he helped shape.”
In a speech given at the cemetery by Michal Doležel, an elected representative of the South Moravian Region, he described the memorial event as “not only about paying tribute to Wiesner here, recalling his personality, and correcting a historical injustice, but above all using history to show how important freedom, political stability, and a joint Europe and world are.”
Doležel described how Brno based architect Mojmír Kyselka visited Ernst Wiesner in Liverpool in 1965 and was probably the first Czech citizen Wiesner had met in two decades.
He said: “According to Kyselka’s words – Wiesner reacted to the meeting with great emotion, saying that it was the most important moment of his life that the city of Brno, to which he had devoted so much of his creative work, had remembered him.
“Even sixty years after this meeting of the two architects, the City of Brno, South Moravian Region and its inhabitants have not forgotten Wiesner. Proof of this is today’s event.”
