Brno: World Heritage Villa Tugendhat to be renovated

Following years of discussions about ownership and financing, Villa Tugendhat, one of the most important modern buildings in the Moravian city of Brno, is to be restored and preserved from further delapidation.

Historical architectural jewel

On a steep site above Luzanky Park at Cernopolni ulice 45 in Brno, Villa Tugendhat has had a chequered history. In 1928–1930 the Brno textile industrialist Fritz Tugendhat and his wife Grete commissioned one of the co-founders of modern architecture, the German Maria Ludwig Michael Mies (1886–1969), better known as Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, to build them a house, which was to become a world-famous work of art. Vaclav Klaus and Vladimir Meciar signed the treaty dividing Czechoslovakia into two independent states – the Czech Republic and Slovakia – on the large dining table in this Villa Tugendhat in 1992. Between these two events, there is a largely tragic story to be told.

Exile – ruin – makeshift repairs – World Heritage

The Jewish couple Fritz and Grete Tugendhat had to flee from the Nazis in 1937–38 and emigrated to Venezuela via Switzerland. Their villa in Brno suffered badly after it had been confiscated by the Gestapo and then occupied in 1945 by the Red Army. In 1962 it became a physiotherapy institute, before being listed as a historical monument and provisionally repaired in 1985. Since 1994 it has been a museum, and in 2001 it was included in the UNESCO World Heritage list.

Crumbling plaster

Wieninternational.at visited Villa Tugendhat in Brno to find out more. This Modernist jewel is in an advanced state of disrepair, with severe damage and cracks to the façade, water stains on the walls and broken stone slabs. Much of the original furniture, windows and precious wood shelves have disappeared. The breath-taking beauty of the villa and the imaginative design are gradually disintegrating.

Restoration appeals and Viennese initiatives

The attention of the City of Vienna was drawn to the fate of Villa Tugendhat through a special display in the Town Hall by the Wiener Planungswerkstatt as part of the exhibition “Vienna, world heritage and contemporary architecture” in April and May 2005. This display helped to raise awareness of the need to rescue Villa Tugendhat from decay. Prior to this, leading representatives of the Wiener Architekturzentrum had called for the villa to be rescued, and the appeals have grown more numerous since then. The Tugendhat family in Vienna has also shown an interest in saving the villa in Brno, led by Daniela Hammer-Tugendhat, one of five children of the villa’s original owner and an art history professor in Vienna. For many years these efforts did nothing but cause further disputes, but they have now resulted in a positive outcome.

1.5 million euros for major restoration

Originally the Tugendhat family waived their right to restitution. In 1994 the city of Brno took over the villa as a museum and organised an architectural competition, which was successfully contested in court, however, by one of the unsuccessful candidates. Last January the city council then decided to give the villa back to the family. Shortly afterwards, the media reported that the family had auctioned a statue from the villa by Wilhelm Lehmbruck at Sotheby’s in London and announced that they were unable to pay the gift tax, which they described as “absurdly high”. Thereupon, on 20 March, the Brno city parliament retracted its own decision to restore the villa. At the same time the city council made available 1.5 million euros for a major restoration of the villa, the total cost of which is put at more than 7 million euros.

Closed for repairs from September 2007

Villa Tugendhat in Brno will remain open until 31 August 2007 and will then be closed for a reported “two to four years” for repairs. Fans of this unique modern architectural jewel can visit the villa until the end of August, but it is as yet unknown when the villa will reopen in all its former glory.

Villa as a “complete work of art”

• Villa Tugendhat, Brno
• Pioneering modern architectural structure of international proportions and a model for 20th century world architecture
• Key Modernist building
• Prime example of interwar functionalist architecture
• Built in 1928–30 on the basis of a design by the German architect Mies van der Rohe on a slope overlooking the city
• Regarded as his most important pre-war building in Europe
• Epoch-making masterpiece of functionalism
• Building of simple beauty
• He designed not only the building but practically all the details and furnishings
• Low villa with steel skeleton, floor-to-ceiling windows and slim chromium-plated column supports
• Integral connection between the hall and garden
• Horizontal structure with main street-facing ground floor façade and three-storey garden-facing façade
• Use of high-quality building materials and the emerging modern technology of the early 20th century
• Furniture designed by Mies van der Rohe himself
• The air conditioning, rare for its time, heated the house in winter and cooled it in summer
• Aesthetic principles: “simplicity of design, clarity of tectonic means, purity of material”
• Concept: open layout allowing skeletal supports, lowerable glass walls, and wall surfaces made of high-quality materials such as ebony and onyx
• Architect’s credo: “less is more”
• Opinion of owners: “This is beauty; this is truth”

From public housing to pioneering Modernist villa

When Villa Tugendhat was built in the late 1920s, Brno was already a centre of avant-garde architecture. Architects like Bohuslav Fuchs or Arnost Wiesner had performed pioneering work in public housing, and many estates and tenements had been built in the city. Villa Tugendhat was a pioneering functionalist house for the upper classes. The architect Ludwig Mies van der Rohe (1886–1969) came from Aachen. His designs were notable for their clear forms and the extensive use of glass, steel and concrete. He laid the foundation for the construction of large buildings with glass façades (skyscrapers) in the “international style”, as it was called at the time. Mies van der Rohe is credited with having said the famous words “less is more” and was co-founder of “Der Ring”, an association of architects. He was director of the Bauhaus art school in Dessau and Berlin from 1930 to 1933 and moved to the USA in 1938. From 1938 to 1958 he was head of the architecture department at Illinois Institute of Technology, the “new Bauhaus" in Chicago. He died in Chicago in 1969.


Further information: Wonderland – Architecture on the Road

Tipp

http://www.schaetze-der-welt.de/denkmal.php?id=288 Sonderausstellung "Villa Tugendhat" Haus Tugendhat

Information:

LUDWIG MIES VAN DER ROHE – permanent exhibition Villa Tugendhat Open: Wednesday to Saturday 10 am to 6 pm Guided visits every hour Last admission 5 pm http://www.tugendhat-villa.cz/html.en/