Fritz Tugendhat is primarily known as the owner of the famous villa in Brno

photo: www.gotobrno.cz

Prague - Entrepreneur Fritz Tugendhat is mainly known as the owner of the famous villa, which today bears his name and which he built together with his wife Greta. He came from a wealthy Jewish-German factory family, whose members contributed to the development of Brno since the mid-19th century. However, the property, including the world-famous building, was taken away first by the Nazis after the occupation and later by the communist regime.

Fritz, who was born on October 10, 1895, originally wanted to study medicine, but eventually, at the age of 24, he got involved in the textile business. As a not particularly talented businessman, he was more interested in the technical side of things and fabric design. In 1928, he married Greta, née Löw-Beer, in Berlin, who came from an even wealthier family involved in sugar and distilling industries. She originally owned the land on which the young couple decided to build a modern house.

The Tugendhats approached the renowned German architect Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, whose work the art-loving Greta Tugendhat became familiar with while living in Berlin. "I really wished to have a modern spacious house with clear and simple shapes. My husband was terrified of rooms filled with figurines and doilies, as he knew from his childhood," she said. After inspecting the plot with a beautiful view of Brno, the architect accepted the commission, resulting in a unique building, Mies's most significant pre-war work.

The Tugendhats moved into the villa in 1930 with their sons Ernst and Herbert and Hanna, Greta's daughter from her first marriage. However, they did not have long to enjoy their new home; after eight years, they had to leave the country due to the growing Nazi threat. The family reached Venezuela via Switzerland in 1941, where daughters Ruth and Daniela were also born. The villa was first confiscated by the Gestapo, and after the war, it was briefly occupied by Soviet soldiers before being nationalized.

It served as a dance school and was used for rehabilitation exercises for children. It was not until 1981 that the building underwent its first repairs and was thus prepared for a historic moment - in 1992, the agreement on the division of Czechoslovakia was signed here. Since 2001, it has been included in the UNESCO World Heritage List and underwent a sensitive reconstruction between 2010 and 2012. Fritz Tugendhat, who died in 1958 in Switzerland, never visited it again, while Greta was here twice at the end of the 1960s.