Photo by Alexandra Timpau.
Mies Van der Rohe’s Tugendhat Villa in Brno, Czech Republic, is a modernist icon and a preeminent example of a very early and remarkably innovative modernist design. The Tugendhat Villa was completed in 1930 and designed at the same time as the Barcelona Pavilion. The Tugendhat Villa shares many important design features with the Pavilion such as a free plan, extensive use of glass and steel, chrome-clad columns, and even an onyx wall. The Tugendhat House was designated as a UNESCO World Heritage Center in 2001 and, after extensive renovation, was re-opened to the public in March 2012.
This event is co-hosted by the MAK Center for Art & Architecture and The American Institute of Architecture, and features an illustrated lecture by art historian Daniela Hammer-Tugendhat, a daughter of the original owners, and her husband, Ivo Hammer, a noted conservator who chaired the international expert commission that consulted on the restoration of the House. The restoration is the subject of a documentary by Dieter Reifarth; brief selections will help illustrate the lecture.
Daniela Hammer-Tugendhat
Daniela Hammer-Tugendhat is Honorary Professor of Art History at the University of Applied Arts Vienna and lectures at the Art History Institute of the University of Vienna. She is the daughter of Grete and Fritz Tugendhat, the awarding authority of the Tugendhat-House by Mies van der Rohe in Brünn. Daniela studied art history and archeology at the University of Bern and Vienna, completed her PhD with a thesis on Hieronymus Bosch and the pictorial tradition. Her main areas of study include early modern art, particularly Netherlandish painting of the 16th-17th Century, Research Development of a history of art as theory of representation concerning cultural studies, including critical research on social practises, semiotic theories and gender studies. Between 2009-2014 she was a member of the ERC, European Research Council in the EU in Brussels for the Advanced Grant. In 2010 she received the Austrian State Prize Gabriele Possanner. Together with Ivo Hammer, she received the Prize of the City of Brno in 2016. Daniela is also the co-author, with Ivo Hammer and Wolf Tegethoff, of Tugendhat House—Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, Basel 2014 (extended edition).
ivo hammer
Ivo Hammer, Dr. Phil., FIIC, is a conservator-restorer in the workshop of his father Walter Hammer, and teaches courses at the Academy of Fine Arts in Stuttgart. He studied at the Universities of Freiburg/Breisgau and Vienna, in the field of art history, philosophy, and Classical and Christian archeology. In 1976-97 he worked as the head of mural painting/architectural surface in the Conservation Institute of the Federal Office of Heritage Preservation, Vienna (Bundesdenkmalamt). His work included conservation of the romanesque murals paintings in Lambach and Salzburg Nonnberg, the Beethoven-Frieze of Gustav Klimt (1902), the facade paintings of the Esterházy-castle of Forchtenstein and historical renderings e.g. of the castle of Salzburg. From 1997-2008, Ivo was a full professor at HAWK University of Applied Sciences and Arts. Between 2003-2010, Ivo did a conservation-science study of the Tugendhat House, Brno (1930, UNESCO-WH). From 2010-2012 he served as the Chair of the International Expert Commission THICOM (Tugendhat House). Together with Daniela Hammer/Tugendhat, he received the Prize of the City of Brno in 2016. In 2017, he was Nominated for the K. F. Schinkel Ring of the German National Committee of Heritage Preservation.
Sponsored by:
Mies van der Rohe Society
David and Margaret Hensler