Villa Tugendhat

Did You Know?

• The villa was a principal location in the 2007 film Hannibal Rising.
• Simon Mawer's 2009 Booker Prize-shortlisted novel The Glass Room is a fictional account of a house inspired by the villa.
• A film based in part on the novel, The Affair, was shot at the villa and released in 2019.

Design

Set into a south-west-facing slope, this three-story villa stands free on its site. The ground floor, which is actually the second story, holds the main living and social spaces along with a conservatory, terrace, kitchen, and servants’ quarters. Above that, the first floor contains the street-level entrance, a passage to the terrace, an entrance hall, and bedrooms for the parents, children, and nanny, each with their own facilities. The chauffeur’s apartment, garages, and a separate terrace are accessed independently.

Mies van der Rohe’s principle of “less is more” and his focus on practical amenities made this an early landmark of functionalist architecture. A pioneering iron frame eliminated load-bearing walls, allowing an open floor plan that emphasized space and light. The main living area features a curtain wall of large windows that frame a panoramic view of Špilberk Castle; two of these windows can be lowered completely into the floor, like car windows. Mies designed all the furniture with interior designer Lilly Reich, including the Tugendhat and Brno chairs, still produced today. No paintings or decorations were used, but the interior feels rich thanks to naturally patterned materials: a brown-gold onyx wall sourced from Morocco’s Atlas Mountains, which Mies personally supervised cutting and finishing, and rare tropical woods. The onyx is partially translucent and shifts in color as the evening sun lowers. The view itself was made an integral part of the interior.

Construction costs were very high due to the unusual method, luxurious materials, and advanced heating and ventilation. The lower-ground level served as a service area. An ultra-modern air-conditioning system was installed, and the glass façade can open completely via a mechanism built into the wall. The floor area was unusually large and open for its time, with ample storage, making the villa unique—and sometimes confusing—to visitors unaccustomed to such minimalism.

History

The villa was built for Fritz and Greta Tugendhat, a German Jewish couple. Construction started in the summer of 1929 and was completed in fourteen months. The family, including their son, the philosopher Ernst Tugendhat, lived there for only eight years. In 1938, Nazi persecution forced them to flee Czechoslovakia just before the Munich Agreement. They went first to Switzerland, then to Venezuela. After the Holocaust, they returned to Switzerland but never again lived in the villa. The Gestapo took the building in 1939, turning it into an apartment and office, altering the interior and losing many furnishings. In 1942, it was rented as offices for the Nazi Messerschmitt aircraft works, and Willy Messerschmitt had his own apartment there. When the Red Army liberated Brno in April 1945, a Soviet unit stayed in the villa and damaged the white linoleum floor. The story that it was used as a stable is unlikely because the garden door is too small. Any remaining furniture was burned for firewood. After the war, the Tugendhats applied to restore their Czechoslovak citizenship in 1945 and filed for restitution in 1947, but all their property stayed seized. The villa became city property, and the factory was nationalized. Over the following decades, the building was partially repaired and used for various purposes, including a children’s physiotherapy center. In 1967, Greta Tugendhat returned with Dirk Lohan, a senior architect from Mies van der Rohe’s Chicago office, to explain the original design. Czech architects then began repairs. The villa was listed as a national cultural heritage site in 1969 and was restored after 1980. On August 26, 1992, Václav Klaus and Vladimír Mečiar met there to sign the agreement that split Czechoslovakia into the Czech and Slovak republics. Since 1994, the villa has been open to the public as a museum run by the city of Brno.