A Mies Masterwork, Deteriorating and in Dispute

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'>Mies van der Rohe’s famous Tugendhat House is the subject of a bitter custody battle.

FROM the outside, the Tugendhat House doesn’t look like one of the most important residential buildings of the 20th century: it’s just two white stucco cubes separated by an opening through which a few spiky treetops protrude. But as a tour guide led a group of 10 through this modern home in the Czech Republic’s second-largest city in early March, it was clear that there was much more to the house, the bulk of which is built on the steep hillside that drops away from the street.
Massive terraces wrap around the upper story. Below, a vast living space is surrounded by floor-to-ceiling glass walls that look out on the garden below, so that even on a rainy day it is bright, almost cheerful. The space is divided only by a semicircular wood wall that creates a dining nook and a free-standing wall of solid onyx that separates the main seating area from a study, and that glows in the afternoon light. Two of the exterior walls even roll down like car windows, letting in the sound of chirping birds.
“The whole living area is really overwhelming,” said Anita Cremers, a tourist from Utrecht, the Netherlands, who visited the house on a whim after seeing it in a brochure. “I’m really glad I came by.” (...)

Fonte: New York Times