The handle in the huge plain door is what I remember best about Tugendhatt Villa in Brno.
You can feel the house most of all by its distinctiveness. It is so completely different from anything else I have seen so far. No shadow of middle class, or the slightest taint of any other culture.
Never before have I been in rooms so saturated with the greatness of an architect, especially in such a clear direct sense.
Yes, I have been in rooms in which one could feel the presence of the creators, their work, culture or even their family life, or some easy or tough way of life.
Yet in this house Mies`s greatness emanates in a pure form. Aha, this man was great – one thinks. One doesn`t think – he was striving, encountered difficulties, no – he was great and that`s it.
I think that only modern times could shape such a “ purely great ” man, architect.
*
Mies understood that the people who were going truly to realize his plan were in Brno, not in the world-known Berlin. It was the place where he saw people who were still able to believe in his thoughts.
Apparently, he did not find this childish faith, so needed for a real creator, in Berlin. As a result he moved his dreams to Brno and impressed two young Tugendhatts. |
|

He left them for the rest of their life his dream – the house.
If you want to enter the house, please put on your best clothes.
As you should bear in mind that you are the guests of three great people who become close to each other by means of a beautiful idea of building a new house: an architect who gave away his best dreams to two strange people; a woman who found love, and a man who looked into the future with faith and hope.
This mutual understanding of the three people resulted in a house in which you can find no windows or walls but rather particles of air saturated with the green, the sky and the wind. |