Brno: The Löw-Beer Villa and the Tugendhat Villa may form a whole

Sadová Street with the Löw-Beer Villa (second from the left), period postcard

Brno - The Art Nouveau Löw-Beer Villa in Brno and the functionalist Tugendhat Villa may in the future create a single visitor unit. Representatives of the South Moravian Region and the city, as owners of both monuments, are negotiating about this.
    The region wants to restore the Löw-Beer Villa in Drobného Street with European funds and create an exhibition about the Art Nouveau style, the textile industry in Brno, and the family of the original owners. The project aimed to coordinate with the renovation of the Tugendhat Villa. City councilors did not give their consent this week, but according to Mayor Roman Onderka (ČSSD), the project has their support. He said this to reporters today.
    The Tugendhat Villa is currently being restored with the help of European funds, with Brno having received a grant that covers most of the costs of 156 million crowns. According to Onderka, the grant was provided with the condition that the villa not be used for commercial purposes. "The project that the region has is commercial," said Onderka, adding that "some officials might not like it." Therefore, he wants a guarantee from the region that if Brno had to return part of the grant in the future due to the creation of a single visitor complex, the region would cover the loss.
    The Löw-Beer Villa could theoretically become a new entry space to the Tugendhat Villa. It is located closer to the city center on the busy Drobného Street opposite Lužánky Park. Visitors would pass through the Löw-Beer Villa and climb to the Tugendhat Villa through the gardens in the courtyard.
    Both buildings once formed a loosely connected unit. The parents of Greta Tugendhat lived in the Löw-Beer Villa, who provided her with the upper part of the garden with a beautiful view of Brno for the construction of a new house for her family. At that time, the gardens of both villas were not separated by a fence, as they are today. "At the boundary of those properties were common facilities, such as Russian skittles, a fire pit, and so on. From Mrs. Greta's memories, we actually know that her sons Ernst and Herbert would ski down to their grandmother in winter," described the villa's caretaker, Iveta Černá, earlier.
    The Löw-Beer Villa was built in the Art Nouveau style by the Brno textile industrialist Moritz Fuhrmann between 1903 and 1904. His sons sold the house in 1913 to factory owner Alfred Löw-Beer.
    The Tugendhat Villa was created in the late 1920s according to the plans of the famous architect Ludwig Mies van der Rohe. The architect realized his idea of continuous living space. The original owners enjoyed the villas for eight years. Fearing the Nazis, they emigrated to Switzerland at the end of the 1930s and then to Venezuela.