As designers, architects, and curious minds, we dream about career zeniths. For us, that came as an invitation to visit the renovated Villa Tugendhat, a UNESCO heritage site, that was designed by the renowned Mies van der Rohe. To describe Mies’s impact on modernist design and the subsequent movement is a craft in itself. He has influenced and inspired so many of us, so naturally, the chance to visit the villa in the Czech Republic is an invite one shouldn’t pass up.

Upon entering Villa Tugendhat, you are immediately overcome by the furnishings designed by Mies and his colleagues Lilly Reich and Sergius Ruegenberg. Although the pieces are a replica of the original, you can easily imagine how precise and composed the space was curated by Mies. With a well-trained eye, you can recognize the noble woods (rosewood, zebra wood, and Macassar ebony) to create the three ‘Tugendhat’ armchairs and three ‘Barcelonas’ that are centerpieces of the foyer and living space.  

While one wanders through the premises, you can't help but imagine the family who once lived there. The home was commissioned by Grete Tugendhat and her husband Fritz who came from a long line of Jewish German industrialists. The family home was designed to house the couple and their growing family but the subsequent war had different plans.  

Even through times of uncertainty and devastation, the house has always remained a constant. Today, after years of renovation, visitors can walk through the space and beautiful gardens, getting a true feeling of the attention to detail and Mies’s appreciation for high-quality materials. The Tugendhat family even said of Mies, “he consequently explained the importance of utilizing noble materials in Modernist structures, in particular, which do not contain decorations or ornamentation, this having been a neglected idea up until then by even, for example, Le Corbusier.” It is, without a doubt, a home worth visiting and feeling inspired by. 

Up next in our Icon series, read about Casa Albero.