Vila Tugendhat offers a complete virtual tour with several bonuses

Brno – The complete interior of the famous Tugendhat villa in Brno's Černá Pole, including its technical background, can be viewed through a virtual tour. The management of the property recorded the villa and its garden last year, and now people can explore the UNESCO monument on its website.

The virtual tour is not meant to replace a physical visit to the villa in any way. "As Greta Tugendhatová recalled during her lecture at the Brno House of Arts in 1969, there is no photograph of the Tugendhat villa that can convey the right impression of the space that the villa offers. The best form of experiencing the villa remains the classic tour, but guests now have the opportunity to get an idea of the uniqueness of the site using modern technologies," stated the villa's manager, Iveta Černá.

The basic recording with a special camera took the whole day last year, but the challenging part was mainly the subsequent image editing and the addition of other data, such as information about the visited rooms or the materials used, photographic or video materials.

The virtual tour covers all spaces of the villa, including the technical background, and people can also peek into areas that they cannot enter during a tour. They can explore, for example, the mechanism for controlling the windows from all sides, which is separated from ordinary visitors by a tape prohibiting entry.

The Tugendhat villa is an exceptionally popular place, and tickets must be purchased several months in advance. The Brno functionalist villa, built by textile entrepreneur Fritz Tugendhat in the late 1920s, has been on the UNESCO World Heritage list since December 14, 2001, making it the eleventh Czech monument to be included. The unique house, designed by the famous architect Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, is often referred to as a building that set new standards for modern living and is considered one of the fundamental works of world modern architecture. However, its original owners did not enjoy the villa for long, as they had to flee from the Nazis in the late 1930s. The family made it to Venezuela via Switzerland in 1941. Last year, over 50,000 people visited the monument, and combined with garden visitors, the number exceeded 100,000.