Last month, Mies van der Rohe’s Tugendhat Villa reopened to the public after an $8.8 million, 2-year, reconstruction. The 1930 villa, built for Fritz and Greta Tugendhat in Brno, Czech Republic, is a groundbreaking example of modern architecture, a poetic union of glass, steel, marble and reinforced concrete that touts Mies’ “less is more” design philosophy through and through. Though it commands respect as a prototype of the modernist ethos, it can almost only be thought of as such; the villa was a home to the Tugendhats for a mere 8 years before the family abandoned the house and fled the country during World War II. Shortly thereafter, the villa fell into disrepair, with no means of upkeep as the beginning of communism took hold in the Czech Republic.
Today, the Villa Tugendhat stands as a salient prototype of historic preservation. After an extensive research period that pieced together original construction plans archived at the MoMA and photographs of the home from the Tugendhat family, Mies’ masterpiece has been faithfully restored. David Židlický recently snapped photos of the restored Villa Tugendhat for Dwell
