The event is part of the UNESCO 25 celebrations.

https://www.maratonhudby.cz

During the weekend of June 13-14 on both days the garden will be accesible from 10 AM to 6 PM and therefore will be part of the Weekend of open gardens.

Thank you for understanding!

On 18 and 19 April, the second annual International House Museum Days 2026 initiative took place, organized by the DEMHIST international commission, which is part of the International Council of Museums (ICOM). The event was held in 40 countries around the world at a total of 370 historic residences.

The only sites in the Czech Republic to participate were Villa Tugendhat, the Arnold Villa, and Villa Wittal.

Villa Tugendhat participated with a guided tour led by architect Iveta Černá. In the early evening, we welcomed younger visitors to a workshop titled “Composing Space: Architecture in Collage,” led by Veronika Svobodová.

The symposium was organized by the National Gallery in Prague in collaboration with the Deutsches Architekturmuseum (DAM) in Frankfurt am Main, the Brno City Museum / Villa Tugendhat, and the Fundació Mies van der Rohe in Barcelona. The event was supported by the Czech-German Future Fund, the Czech Chamber of Architects, the Bund Deutscher Architektinnen und Architekten, and JUNG GmbH.

Seven of the exhibited projects date to Mies’s time in the United States in the years 1938–1969. But the collages from his American period are more than just working sketches. Although they could be used to present proposals to clients, they can also be seen as autonomous visual works made from a variety of materials. They combine perspective drawings, wood veneers, photographs of the landscape, and reproductions of works by artists whom Mies admired: Paul Klee, Pablo Picasso, Wilhelm Lehmbruck, Wassily Kandinsky, and Aristide Maillol, among others. Thanks to all these factors, the collages can articulate proportions, a sense of depth, and the building’s relationship to its surroundings. They are also reminders of Mies’s close ties to the European avant-garde, in particular Constructivism, Dada, and De Stijl.

The selected collages all show a view from the interior, through large glass walls, onto the landscape outside. As with Mies’s realized projects, architecture here is clearly not an isolated object, but a means by which man relates to his surroundings. In his designs, Mies does not seek to dominate nature, but to create a spatial framework in which the landscape can naturally enter the building’s interior. His studies for the Resor House in Wyoming, for a “Museum for a Small City,” for the Bacardi company’s administration building in Cuba, for the Georg Schäfer Museum in Schweinfurt, and for the Neue Nationalgalerie in Berlin all work with a similar concept of space, one that characterizes Villa Tugendhat as well, with the glass surface simultaneously blurring and strictly defining the boundary between interior and exterior. Although Mies did not create any collages of the Brno villa, the curators’ selection consciously emphasizes the exhibited works’ connection with the exhibition venue.

This lesser-known aspect of Mies’s architectural practice has previously been studied by such authors as Phyllis Lambert, Andres Lepik, Barry Berdoll, and Martino Stierli, but it was first presented in exhibition form in 2016–2017 at Mies van der Rohe: Die Collagen aus dem Museum of Modern Art. Organized for the Ludwig Forum für Internationale Kunst in Aachen by a team including Brigitte Franzen and Andreas Beitin, the exhibition was subsequently shown at the Georg Schäfer Museum in Schweinfurt. The comprehensive exhibition catalogue represents an important resource for further research and study.

The exhibited works are presented as high-quality prints of the originals.

Exhibition opening
Wednesday 25 March 2026, 18.00

Exhibition duration
26 March – 13 September 2026
(accessible without reservation Tue–Sun, 10.00–18.00)
The exhibition is situated on the technical ground floor of Villa Tugendhat.

Exhibition authors: Michal Kolář, Barbora Benčíková, Veronika Svobodová
Villa Tugendhat Study and Documentation Center (SDC-VT) – Brno City Museum
Exhibition architecture and design: Atelier Zidlicky
Jazyková korektura: Neli Hejduk
Translation: Stephan von Pohl

Digital reproductions of collages: The Museum of Modern Art, New York / Scala Archives; Nationalgalerie, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin / bpk-Bildagentur

Photographs: David Židlický, Vladimír Buček – NPÚ-ÚOP Brno

The portfolio is an expanded edition of a collection of photographs capturing Villa Tugendhat in its material, spatial, and luminous essence. The visual section is complemented by scholarly texts reflecting key moments in the building’s history.

The portfolio was prepared in collaboration with the Villa Tugendhat Study and Documentation Centre, among other things to mark the 140^th anniversary of Ludwig Mies van der Rohe’s birth and the 25^th anniversary of the villa’s inscription on the UNESCO World Heritage List, which we are commemorating in 2026.

You can purchase the portfolio at the Villa Tugendhat box office or through the Brno City Museum’s online store.

The Villa Tugendhat travelling exhibition project made its debut in Chicago in 2012, when the first destination was the famous S. R. Crown Hall of the Illinois Institute of Technology, which, like Villa Tugendhat, was designed by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe. Forty large-format panels with archival and contemporary photographs, accompanied by texts, summarize the history and development of the building from its inception to the present day. In addition to the panels, the exhibition is also accompanied by:

• a 1:350 scale model of Villa Tugendhat;
• a replica of the “Chaise longue”, a tubular steel chaise longue upholstered in ruby-red velvet;
• the MR 50 “Brno” chair, made of tubular steel and upholstered in off-white leather.

The exhibition will be open from Monday to Friday from 10.00 to 17.00. For more information, please visit: