There is great interest in tours of the reconstructed Tugendhat villa

photo: David Židlický

Brno - The public's interest in tours of the reconstructed Tugendhat villa, which is an architectural pride of Brno, remains unwavering. Tours of the site are fully booked until July. The villa has been open since early March. During that time, it has been visited by over 5,000 people, which matches the previous number of visitors to this heritage site for an entire quarter. Iveta Černá, the head of the Tugendhat villa, stated this to ČTK today.
    "We knew there would be extraordinary interest in the villa tour. However, we did not expect it to be this great," she said. The first two months of operation show that about 40 percent of visitors are from abroad, mainly from the USA, Germany, and France. Černá expects that the number of foreigners will grow as the summer season approaches.
    According to her, some travel agencies do not realize how great the interest in the villa is. It often happens that they bring a bus full of foreigners who cannot enter because they do not have a reservation ahead of time. Even in the rain, they at least take a tour of the garden with a presentation of this functionalist monument from the outside.
    Recently, an application was launched on the object's website www.tugendhat.eu allowing for reservations for entrance to the site until the end of this year. Černá anticipates that all spots will soon be filled. Eight entrance slots occur daily, with each group consisting of 15 people. Before the reconstruction, about 20,000 visited annually, and this year it will be double that.
    "However, we will soon reach the limit of what is sustainable from the perspective of the operation of the object. We will not allow higher attendance," she added. The relatively high entrance fee does not deter the public from visiting the villa. Visitors pay 300 crowns for a one-hour tour of the living spaces. For a 1.5-hour-long tour that includes access to the technical floor, they pay 350 crowns. More than 80 percent of visitors are interested in the more expensive option.
    The villa is closed for a week starting today. Minor adjustments are being made. The slightly wavy linoleum will be straightened. The heritage restoration of the site began in January 2010 and lasted approximately two years. The restoration costs amounted to 174 million crowns.