On 26 and 27 March 2026, Villa Tugendhat hosted the international symposium “More is Now! Ludwig Mies van der Rohe 140”, organized to mark the 140th anniversary of the birth of one of the most significant architects of the 20th century. The two-day programme brought together experts from the Czech Republic, Germany, and other countries and explored how the current generation of architects is reinterpreting Mies’ proverbial paradigm “Less is More” in the context of new technologies, materials, limited resources, and environmental and social challenges.
Both Villa Tugendhat and the Barcelona Pavilion, built between 1928 and 1930, embody the principles of structural clarity, transparency, material authenticity, and artistic purity. Ludwig Mies van der Rohe was around forty-two years old at the time of their construction and worked closely with Lilly Reich on both projects. This extraordinary professional collaboration was one of the symposium’s key themes. The opening evening began with a discussion and film screening dedicated to Lilly Reich.
The discussion “Collaborations of Ludwig Mies van der Rohe & Lilly Reich 1:1” featuring Débora Domingo Calabuig and Helena Huber-Doudová, offered new perspectives on the nature of this collaboration as well as on the complications associated with its subsequent historical assessment. The discussion was followed by a screening of the documentary film [On Set] with Lilly Reich (2020) by directors Avelina Prat-García and Laura Lizondo-Sevilla and architect Débora Domingo Calabuig. The film explores Lilly Reich’s position within the modernist movement and seeks to re-evaluate her contribution to architecture and design.
The second day of the symposium was primarily dedicated to the younger generation of architects. As part of the More is Now! Shorts section, a number of Czech and German studios representing the upcoming generation presented their work. The programme culminated with a lecture titled The Display of Space / The Space of Display: the Villa Tugendhat and Mies’ Exhibition Practice by Barry Bergdoll, professor of art history at Columbia University and former chief curator of the Department of Architecture and Design at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York. Bergdoll placed Villa Tugendhat within the broader context of Mies’ exhibition practice in the late 1920’s—from the Werkbund Exhibition in Stuttgart (1927) to the Deutsche Bauausstellung in Berlin (1931). The evening programme also featured the dance performance Revealed by choreographer Jarek Cemerka and dancer Nataša Novotná.
The symposium also served as a preview of the exhibition More is Now! New Czech Architecture, which DAM and the National Gallery in Prague are organizing in conjunction with the Frankfurt Book Fair, where the Czech Republic will be the guest of honour in 2026. The exhibition will present contemporary Czech architecture in an international context and will be open to the public from 19 September 2026, to 17 January 2027.
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.