In 1884, the painter and Slovak revivalist Jožo Úprka formulated his appeal: “To be and remain with one’s own until death – our people can be recognized! And therefore, everything that is theirs should be kept in the people. The Slovácko Museum should be founded, where everything that is ours can be hidden, so that people can look at our beauty, and future generations can see what we have.” In connection with the preparations for the Czechoslovak Ethnographic Exhibition in Prague in 1895, small ethnographic exhibitions were also organized in the Slovak region in 1892–1893. And on January 6, 1895, the Slovak Congress was held in Uherské hradiště, at which the Central Ethnographic Committee for the Slovak region was founded, which was to provide exhibits for the Prague exhibition. It was later formed into a Committee with the aim of initiating the establishment of the Slovak Museum. This actually happened only on June 1, 1914, when the Museum of National Unity in Uherské Hradiště was ceremonially opened in the former Jesuit monastery, mainly thanks to Josef Kalvani and František Kretez. The latter also published the first issue of the museum bulletin in 1915. A large exhibition of the Slovak region was also planned for 1915, for which Jožo Úprka created the poster. However, the preparations for the exhibition and the operation of the museum were interrupted for several years by the events of the First World War.

Only in 1929 did the city purchase the building of the Shooting Association with a restaurant and adapt it for the needs of the Slovácko Museum, which began using it in 1931. With the new headquarters also came a great development of the museum's collection, research and exhibition activities, which significantly contributed to the preparation of the ambitious regional exhibition of the Slovácko region prepared for 1937. For this event, which was to present the history and present of the Slovácko region, its culture, economy and natural wealth, an entire temporary exhibition area with 33 pavilions was built in Smetana Gardens. It also included the Slovácko Museum, whose exhibition capacities, however, were not sufficient for the grandiose plan. It was therefore decided to complete the building, according to the design of architect Bohuslav Fuchs. He was directly awarded the contract, at the instigation of Ladislav Červinka, then director of the Municipal Savings Bank in Uherské Hradiště (which was also built according to Fuchs's design in 1933). Fuchs designed a contrasting functionalist extension to the original museum building, which was completed in 1936. A dominant staircase projection with a protruding glazed bay window above the main entrance to the museum rises from the smoothly plastered two-storey building in the shape of a cuboid. The two circular windows on its left side also evoke the control bridge and nautical morphology. On the ground floor there was a large hall with strip windows on the east and west sides, and on the first floor there were exhibition spaces with overhead lighting.

From the proceeds of the Slovácko 1937 exhibition, the city decided to finance the further completion of the museum building, again in cooperation with Bohuslav Fuchs. In 1939, he designed a long wing with operational and office spaces on the ground floor and 160 m2 of exhibition halls on the first floor with lantern lighting. The mass of the building is lightened by pilaster strips supporting the first floor, rhythmically punctuated by pilasters. Construction took place in 1940–1942, but due to war events and a shortage of iron, the design had to be modified.

Bohuslav Fuchs returned to the museum building for the third time in 1964, when he proposed the reconstruction of the original museum building, where a new exhibition space was created. The original facade of the historical part of the museum is still visible today, and together with Fuchs' modernist extensions, they form an architecturally interesting whole, which is now a protected cultural monument.

Lucie Valdhansová