VILLA TUGENDHAT, BRNO

Villa Tugendhat is one of the pioneering prototypes of modern architecture in Europe. Designed by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe and Lilly Reich and built between 1928 and 1930 for Fritz and Greta Tugendhat — members of a wealthy and influential Jewish Czech family — it became an icon of modernism almost immediately. The building was added to the UNESCO World Heritage List in 2001.

The villa sits on a slope and faces south-west. Mies used a revolutionary iron framework that allowed him to dispense with load-bearing walls and arrange the interior to achieve a feeling of space and light. The main living area features a curtain wall of large windows framing a panoramic view of Špilberk Castle — two of which can be lowered completely into the floor, much like a car window. The main living area features a dividing wall of brown-gold onyx sourced from the Atlas Mountains in Morocco, which Mies supervised the cutting and finishing of himself. There are no paintings, no decoration. The richness comes entirely from the materials.

Photograph by GualdimG, licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons.

Photograph by Walther.krup, licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons.

The history of the villa is as significant as its architecture. Fritz and Greta Tugendhat lived there for just eight years before the Nazi persecution of Jewish people forced the family to flee Czechoslovakia in 1938, shortly before the country was dismembered following the Munich Agreement. The Gestapo confiscated the villa in 1939 and used it as an apartment and office. In 1942 it was rented as offices for the Messerschmitt aeroplane works. When the Red Army liberated Brno in April 1945, a Soviet unit quartered in the villa, causing considerable damage. The remaining furniture was used for firewood. After decades of various uses — including as a children's physiotherapy centre — the villa was restored and has been open to the public as a museum administered by the city of Brno since 1994.

The Brief

The commission came from a member of the Tugendhat family: a model of the villa, the entire building, at 1:100 scale. A family connection to one of the great buildings of the twentieth century, made tangible.

For us, it was an immediate privilege. Villa Tugendhat is a building we know well — its proportions, its materials, the way it handles its sloping site. The brief was precise and the expectations were high. We were glad of both.

The Making

We modelled the entire villa in CAD, producing renders for client review and sign-off before moving to production. At 1:100 scale — the finished model approximately 40 × 20 × 25 cm — every element needed to be considered: not just the massing, but the windows, the doors, the floors, the key interior features visible through the glazing.

Modelling in progress - top floor internal walls being assembled.

The external walls and roof are cast in plaster, giving the model the weight and solidity the building deserves. The window frames and external doors are metal-etched, picking up the precision of Mies's detailing in a material that can hold it. The internal walls, floors, and key features are 3D printed, reading through the extensive glazing much as the real interior reads from the garden. The model sits on a rebated plaster plinth, with a five-sided perspex case that locates into the rebate — enclosing the building cleanly, without fuss.

The result is a model that rewards looking at from every angle, which is exactly what the building asks of you.

Finished model

The Delivery

The client was very pleased with the result. We will leave the details at that — a commission from within the Tugendhat family is not something we take lightly, and their response meant a great deal to us.

Finished model with acrylic case.