Villa Tugendhat – Its Genesis and Reflection
by Vladimír Šlapeta
Even though it is a work that from the outside gives the impression of a constructive, functional structure, a detailed viewing convinces us that the essence of the representative villa was not, indeed, abandoned, and hence it is not an act that would lie closer to the future than to the past.
In his book Die neue Baukunst in Europa und Amerika, Bruno Taut provided a depiction of – among other matters – villa architecture at the start of the year 1929. Alongside the houses from the exposition in Weissenhof, it discusses Taut’s own villa as well as the personal residence of Ernst May, Gropius’s villas for the Bauhaus masters in Dessau, houses by Karl Schneider and Lois Welzenbacher, and a few examples from Switzerland and the Netherlands. The USSR is represented by Konstantin Melnikov’s villa and the USA by Rudolf Schindler and Richard Neutra. Ludwig Mies van der Rohe is present with his design for a concrete-and-brick villa from 1923 and the Villa Wolf in Guben, yet indisputably the selection is dominated by Le Corbusier’s Villa Stein in Garches.
Photo: Brno City Museum’s Archive
Sketch by Sergius Ruegenberg (1903-1996)
Vladimír Šlapeta’s personal archive
Arhitect: Ludwig Mies van der Rohe
Build: 1928-1930
Renovated: 2010-2012
The complete article is published in Winter 2013 issue of Piranesi No. 33/Vol. 21.