The Villa Tugendhat

The inter-war functional architecture surely left some prints. One of them is the Villa Tugendhat. Its significance and beauty was not fully appreciated until 2001. In this year the building was inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List.

The designer of the plans was Ludwig Mies van der Rohe. This famous German architect made the plans for a rich owner of a textile factory in Brno - Fritz Tugendhat.

The destiny of the Villa Tugendhat

When the family emigrated during the WWII to Switzerland (and then to Venezuela), it was used for many purposes. At the beginning of 1980’s it went under a reconstruction. This reconstruction was not very sensitive, so the villa lost its beautiful bathrooms and toilets.

In general, the Villa Tugendhat was preserved almost in its original version. It was the last building which was built according the Ludwig Miese van der Rohe’s plans in our country, because the architect moved to the USA to escape Nazism (then he built a lot of interesting buildings in Chicago).

The structure of the villa

The appearance of the building is literally revolutionary. The villa is made of a steel skeleton. The ceilings of the building are very interesting. The house stands in an open area and it has 3 floors. Each floor has a different floor plan and a different frontage. The main part of the building is on the second floor. You can enter it by a fusiform staircase from the entrance hall. The living rooms with a conservatory are really beautiful. Also the kitchen is very interesting; it is equipped with a lift for meals.

There are also glassed-in walls, which join the house with the surrounding area. The house is covered with milk glass.