Villa Tugendhat

Finished in 1930

Villa Tugendhat is located in the Černá Pole neighbourhood of Brno. The German architect Ludwig Mies van der Rohe was commissioned by the Tugendhat family to design a villa for a young family, on a large piece of land on a southwest-facing slope with a panoramic view of the city. Alfred Löw-Beer, a prominent textile industrialist and the father of Greta Tugendhat, financed its construction. The Tugendhat couple lived in the villa until 1938, when they had to emigrate due to their Jewish descent. The villa was significantly damaged at the end of the war and after the war it served as the rehabilitation centre of the nearby children’s hospital. In the 1980s and then between 2010 and 2012 the villa was reconstructed. It has been a cultural monument since 1969 and it was inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List in 2001. Villa Tugendhat became the historic location of the official dissolution of the Czechoslovak Republic, when Czech and Slovak prime ministers met in 1992 and agreed to dissolve the common state.

The functionalist building laid the foundations of modernism in architecture. It is a three-storey building located on a slope, which makes it appear single-storey from the street. The bedroom, children’s rooms, social facilities and the terrace are located on the top floor.  The middle floor is the building’s representative part, with studies, a dining room and living quarters. The lower floor contains the technical facilities (washroom, boiler-room, etc.). The main residential part of the villa is connected with the side wing, intended for servants. Modern technology was used in its construction (heating and air conditioning), as well as expensive materials (e.g. an onyx and ebony wall). The interior and its fittings, currently very valuable, was also designed by the building’s architect. The way he connected the residential zones with the garden is noteworthy, e.g. using the winter garden and the famous glass wall in the main residential area. The use of large sliding windows in the glass wall was also innovative, as well as the visible steel construction, creating the feeling of an uninterrupted residential space. The house is now managed by the Brno City Museum and it is possible to book a tour of the villa.