Vila Tugendhat celebrates the 20th anniversary of its inscription in UNESCO

Brno – With the launch of new websites and two days of special holiday tours, the Brno Tugendhat Villa celebrates the 20th anniversary of its inscription on the UNESCO World Heritage List. The new websites will go live on Thursday, December 16, the same day the villa's management will release advance sales for tours on December 26 and December 31. The Brno City Museum, which manages the villa, informed about it in a press release.

"I would like this icon of modern architecture to be more accessible to the public, who cannot plan their visit to Brno months in advance. The villa has its capacity limits; however, to celebrate 20 years since the inscription, we decided to organize special tours on December 26 and 31," said Zbyněk Šolc, director of the Brno City Museum.

The annual attendance at the functionalist monument began to rise sharply after its inscription on UNESCO. From 8,000 visitors per year in 2000, it reached a record almost 60,000 in 2019. Tickets for tours usually sell out very quickly, often within half a year after new dates are opened for sale.

However, the growing attendance and tour reservations were significantly affected by the coronavirus pandemic, which forced the otherwise year-round open villa to remain closed for long months. Last year, it was visited by 38,086 people, and this year from May to November, when it could be open, it welcomed 32,684 visitors, said villa management spokesperson Petr Dvořák to ČTK.

"Recently, due to COVID-19, it has also happened more frequently that dates are released as people cancel reservations at the last minute. Uncertainty usually prevails among foreign groups as well, where we often do not know until the last moment whether they will arrive," Dvořák stated.

The monument underwent extensive repairs costing 176 million crowns between 2010 and 2012, which experts had been preparing since 2003.

Tugendhat Villa is one of the most visited landmarks in Brno, with tours often sold out six months in advance. The villa was designed in 1928 by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe for Greta and Fritz Tugendhat. It is unique in its construction, spatial arrangement, interior furnishings, technical background, and integration into nature. For the first time in architectural history, a steel load-bearing structure was used in the construction of a private house.