"Nature should also have a life of its own. We houldn’t disturb it with colours of our houses and interior furnishing, but we shou try to unite nature, houses and people in higher unity."
Ludwig Mies van der Rohe
Street entrance (1929/1930)Villa Tugendhat
Entrance terrace
When approaching Villa Tugendhat from Černopolní Street, you will notice that the building is quite inconspicuous. The entrance area is very clearly divided into several functional sectors, for example: the technical terrace.
Entrance hall and terrace (1929/1930)Villa Tugendhat
Entrance to the building
The main entrance to the house is located in the lee behind a curved wall of milk glass. The single-leaf entrance door is veneered with Rosewood. The door leaf covers the whole clear height of the room similarly to all other doors in the residential spaces.
3rd Floor
Entrance hall
The entrance hall is dominated by Italian travertine on the floor and
a staircase descending to the main living room on the second floor. From the entrance hall, you can enter two main sections of the third floor: the parents' and children's sections.
MR20 chairs in entrance hall (1929/1930)Villa Tugendhat
Parents' rooms
The parents' rooms consist of two bedrooms and a shared bathroom. Another room, with a distinctive cherry red Brno-type chair, a double bed and a smaller sofa, belonged to Greta Tugendhat.
The room dominated by a desk and two chairs, was occupied by Fritz Tugendhat.
Children's rooms
The villa was originally occupied by three children, together with their parents and servants. Daughter Hanna, from Greta's first marriage, and sons Ernst and Herbert. The boys' room is furnished with simple lacquered children's furniture, which was not designed by Mies but was probably made by Jan Vaněk's SBS company. The furnishings in Hanna's room were designed by Mies in collaboration with Lilly Reich. In this section of the house there is also a shared bathroom and a governess's room.
Upper terrace
The garden part of the terrace was strictly private. It is accessible from each room (excluding the governess‘s room). Greta remembers that the children had a small tub with water on the terrace and a sandbox and drove their toy cars around. The pergola was overgrown with creepers providing pleasant shade.
The upper terrace gives a magnificent view over the garden and historic city centre skyline. There are several moments in the “communication” between the house and the garden on several levels. Each floor communicates with the garden in a different way
2nd floor panorama (1929/1930)Villa Tugendhat
The view from the upper terrace
The view from the 3rd floorof the house offers a view of the Brno panorama – the connection between the villa and the city.
3rd floor panorama (1929/1930)Villa Tugendhat
The view from the living area
When viewed from the 2nd floor, views between the trees open onto the individual landmarks of the city, but the view is directed mainly to the intimacy of the garden – the connection with the natural surroundings.
Garden facade (1929/1930)Villa Tugendhat
View from the garden
When looking directly onto the garden itself (1st floor), we see a grassy meadow with trees and also plants on the facades, evoking the optical „disappearance“ of the building’s mass into the greenery.
From the third floor, a spiral travertine staircase in the entrance hall leads to the main living area.
The layout of the main living space and the connection with the outside environment is a fundamental attribute of Villa Tugendhat. The architect Ludwig Mies van der Rohe removed the four walls defining the room. The individual functional zones of the "flowing" space are indicated only by the straight line of the onyx and the curve of the macassar partition walls, the regular rhythm of the steel supporting columns, and the arrangement of the furniture.
Entrance to living area (1929/1930)Villa Tugendhat
City view (1929/1930)Villa Tugendhat
Living area and entrance (1929/1930)Villa Tugendhat
The space right behind the entrance from the staircase is a kind of proscenium with an opaque glazed wall which can be illuminated. This is followed by a „music chamber“ with a piano. In the wall we can notice a small entrance where the projection machine was located.
Tugendhat chair in library (1929/1930)Villa Tugendhat
Study
In the study, the onyx partition is the dominant feature, with a desk and two MR20 chairs in front of it. The study includes a bookcase with a sofa and a bridge table. The bookcase is veneered with original Makassar ebony.
Onyx wall
The honey-coloured, yellow rock with white veins was mined from the Atlas Mountains in former French Morocco in North Africa. It's particularly popular with visitors because of how it changes colour, an effect visible mainly during winter months when the sunlight shines through.
Conservatory (1929/1930)Villa Tugendhat
Conservatory
The close connection between the house and the vegetation culminated in the interior of the winter garden adjoining the main living area. The winter garden contained a pond with water plants and greenery in pots.
Living area Barcelonas (1929/1930)Villa Tugendhat
Seating space in front of the onyx wall
There is a seating area in front of the onyx partition, currently consisting of three Barcelona armchairs and one Barcelona stool (MR 90) produced in emerald green leather, three Tugendhat armchairs with silver-grey fabric covers (MR 70) and an MR 150 table.
Chaise longue
The ruby red chaise longue/spring chair (MR 100) is one of the most photogenic elements of the villa. In the main living area you can see an exact replica from 2012. The original is located in the exposition in the technical floor of the house.
Dining area
The dining area is defined by a rounded partition veneered with Macassar ebony, surrounding a generous dining table. The original partition was removed from the interior in 1940, and for some 70 years its fate was unknown. Thanks to the historian Miroslav Ambroz, it was discovered in 2011 in the canteen of the Faculty of Law of Masaryk University in Brno, where it was secondarily used as wall cladding. Thanks to the painstaking work of the restorers, this authentic element was returned to its place as part of the restoration process in 2012.
Dining room (1929/1930)Villa Tugendhat
Dining table
is an exact replica of the original table, made according to the original design (it was installed in 2012). The table, veneered in black polished pear, can be used in three possible sizes. The table can be made smaller or larger by adding or removing individual table segments.
The interior furnishings and furniture are an integral part of the Villa Tugendhat design. Mies van der Rohe, in collaboration with Lilly Reich and Sergius Ruegenberg, designed the majority of these furnishings, with the Brno-type chairs and the Tugendhat chair, for example, being designed specifically for this project.
Kitchen
The kitchen is situated at the border between the residential and personnel sections. At the entrance from the personnel section there used to be a stove. The kitchen walls are lined up to the ceiling with white earthenware tiles and there are white ceramic tiles on the floor.
Living area door (1929/1930)Villa Tugendhat
Dining terrace
The garden terrace, often used by the family for summer gatherings, is located above a large travertine staircase, which offers a truly generous entrance to the main living area of the house. The travertine on the terrace was installed during the 2010–2012 restoration.
Villa and autumn trees (1929/1930)Villa Tugendhat
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