Volunteers from the United Kingdom will come to help at the Stiassni villa

Brno - Volunteers from Great Britain will come for a week to help with work at the Stiassni Villa in Brno. They will help revive selected parts of the extensive garden, which once belonged to one of the largest of its kind. Petr Svoboda, head of the Methodical Centre for Modern Architecture, which manages the villa, told ČTK.

The group of volunteers is being sent to Brno by the non-profit organization The Friends of Czech Heritage. It was founded ten years ago by Barbara Peacock and Ian Kennaway, who were fascinated by the amount and quality of cultural heritage in the Czech Republic.

"Since then, this organization has helped restore dozens of buildings and historic parks. The patron of the British friends is architect Eva Jiřičná," stated Svoboda.

Czech volunteers can join the British group during the week of July 9. They can participate in the entire week-long program or just part of it. "In addition to work at the Stiassni Villa, the volunteers will also visit other villas in Brno or perhaps the Veveří Castle," noted Svoboda.

The villa was built between 1927 and 1929 according to a design by architect Arnošt Wiesner for textile industrialist Alfred Stiassni, a Jewish businessman who owned a factory in Brno on Přízová Street, later known as Vlněna. During the occupation, the Gestapo confiscated it from the original owners, and after the war, it remained with the state. The family lived in the USA after the war. The building was given the nickname government villa right after the end of World War II when Edvard Beneš spent the night there. Later, Cuban revolutionary Fidel Castro also stayed overnight at the villa.