Architecture: Ludwig Mies Van der Rohe's Villa Tugendhat

The famous Barcelona chairs that were originally designed especially for the Villa Tughendhat in 1928 by Mies van der Rohe and Lilly Reich. 

One of the icons of early twentieth century Modernism, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe's Villa Tugendhat has been restored to it's austere 1929 splendour after a two-year renovation. Filled with many of the architect's influential furniture designs still produced today, the house looks serenely across to the historic centre of Brno in the Czech Republic, write Andreas Romagnoli & Jeanne-Marie Cilento. Photographs by Andreas Romagnoli

MIES van der Rohe’s Villa Tugendhat retains it's revolutionary purity and cutting-edge style even after nearly a century of minimalist design. The architect's famous less is more dictum is fully evinced in the functional design of the house. Completed in 1930, the sleek building strikes a perfect balance between the rigorous Rationalists and the Bauhaus school mixed with a starkly dynamic Central European aesthetic.

The villa combines that alchemy of art, philosophy and architecture that was key to the early Modernist movement. Mies Van der Rohe believed that architecture in its simplest form is essentially functional but that at its highest level it could engender a spiritual experience and enter the realm of pure art.

Considered one of the finest examples of the International Style of architecture, the Villa Tugendhat is part of the Modern movement that developed in early twentieth century Europe. The design also implements new spatial concepts and aesthetic innovations that were created to meet the needs of the new way of life tied to modern industrial production. Not surprisingly, Greta and Fritz Tugendhat, who commissioned the house, were both from wealthy families of textile entrepreneurs in the city of Brno.

The location of the villa on a steep hill overlooking the town, was one of the factors that influenced the design of the house. The building was oriented to the south-west to have a complete view of the historic centre of the city, including both hills that dominate the skyline.

One of the most interesting aspects of the house is the interior  which retains many original pieces of furniture designed by Mies van der Rohe which later became icons of European design. The elegant austerity of the rooms and furniture inside the villa represent the spirit and the intentions of the entire building.

While the individual zones within the living areas are divided by a wall of honey-coloured, veined onyx from the foothills of the Atlas mountains in Morocco, a striking half-circular wall is made from Macassar ebony wood mined on the island of Celebes in south-east Asia. 

Mies van der Rohe’s colleagues Lilly Reich and Sergius Ruegenberg also collaborated with him on the furnishings of the house. The furniture is mostly made from tubular steel with rosewood, zebra wood and Macassar ebony. The majority of the metal furniture was produced in Berlin, while the built-in furniture was produced in Brno by architect Jan Vaňek who was also working on the interiors of Adolf Loos’ Müller Villa in Prague.

Three Tugendhat armchairs originally stood in front of the living room’s onyx wall, upholstered in silver-grey, plus three Barcelona armchairs and a stool in emerald green leather, a glass table and a white bench. A strong colour accent was provided by a reclining chair with ruby red velvet upholstering. The 'Brno' chairs made from tubular steel and upholstered in white sheepskin were situated around the round, retractable dining table designed by Mies van der Rohe and made from black polished pear wood.

The three-storey house is built with an innovative steel skeleton with reinforced concrete ceilings and brick masonry. The slim and elegant supporting columns of a cross-shaped profile are part of the interior’s living spaces. While the villa’s basement level contains the utility facilities, the ground floor houses the main living areas with the conservatory and the terrace as well as the kitchen and servants' rooms. The third storey, on the first floor, houses the main entrance from the street plus bedrooms for the family.

Mies Van der Rohe wanted the façade of the house to be covered in climbing plants to create an optical disappearance of the building's mass into the greenery plus enhancing the link between the interior and the exterior. Today, the garden’s connections with the main living areas is most apparent where the dining area links with the elongated half-circular terrace under the weeping window.

Completed in 2012, the extensive restoration of the exterior and interior of the house and gardens aimed to bring back the villa's original 1929 design. Today, the Villa Tugendhat is the only example of Modern architecture in the Czech Republic recorded on the UNESCO list of world cultural heritage.

The MR chaise longue and table specially designed for the Villa Tugendhat by Mies van der Rohe and still being produced today. 

Looking out across the city of Brno in the Czech Republic through Villa Tugendhat's enormous glass walls.

A beautifully designed Macassar wood table, its dark striations make a striking contrast to the pale floors and walls of glass.

The newly restored garden front of the villa that overlooks the historic centre of Brno. Plants are being trained up the walls to recreate Mies van der Rohe's design of reducing the mass of the house and blending the building into the garden.

Plants on the terrace and the green Barcelona chairs bring the garden inside. 

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The broad marble stairs leading up from the garden to the villa's central living areas. 

The curving opaque glass wall at one side of the Villa Tugendhat's entrance makes a dynamic contrast with the buidling's flat, cream-coloured concrete walls and the cross-shaped elegant support beams that can be seen inside and out of the house. 

The iconic Barcelona chairs designed especially for the Villa Tughendhat in 1928 by Mies van der Rohe and Lilly Reich. 

The rich woods used in the interior design of the house make a dramatic contrast to the chrome columns and clean minimalist lines of the rest of the living spaces.

A photograph of the sitting area with its Barcelona chairs soon after the house was completed in 1930. 

The Macassar wood is used to great effect in the library and gives a sense of warmth to the interior's glass and chrome surfaces.

Two of the D42 armchairs in wicker and chrome chairs and table designed by Mies van der Rohe.

The garden facade of the house showing how the plants will grow up the sides of the building to make the villa seem as if it is floating on a green base of leaves.

The curving Macassar ebony wood wall that wraps around the living area and delineates different areas for sitting and dining. 

The golden onyx wall used to divide the sitting room and library that Mies van der Rohe was to use to great effect in the Barcelona Pavilion.

It's seems remarkable that barely twenty years ago, fashionable houses were still decorated in the high Edwardian or Victorian style. The Villa Tugendhat's decisive simplicity and functionalism mixed with raw, rich natural materials would pave the way for the ongoing appeal of Modernist architecture. 

This photograph from the 1930s after the house was completed for the Tugendhat family shows the natural light flooding in from the revolutionary glass walls that surround the living areas. 

Sitting area in the library taken shortly after the house was completed, The chairs are Mies van der Rohe's Brno armchairs still in production today.

New Architecture: Brazil's Casa Cubo by Isay Weinfeld

Brazilian architect Isay Weinfeld's dramatic curving stair that floats above the floor of the mezzanine library. 

A spectacular spiral staircase of Brazilian ironwood is the design centerpiece of architect Isay Weinfeld’s new house and gallery in São Paulo, reports Jeanne-Marie Cilento. Photographs by Fernando Guerra

LOCATED in the fashionable Jardins district, the building is one of four others the architect has designed or renovated in the same street, including the Yucatan House. A modernist and minimalist at heart, Weinfeld uses rich local materials to offset his lean and austere spaces which evoke the stark beauty of Mies van der Rohe's 1929 German Pavilion in glass, onyx and green marble.

Called Casa Cubo, Weinfeld’s new building has white gallery-like interiors to house the owners art collection including the Antony Gormley sculptures suspended from the ceiling. The five life-size nude male figures are cast from lead and fiberglass and hang from the neck ~ the heads seemingly disappearing into the next floor. Created in 1992, Gormley’s work is on show in the specially-designed double-height living room for the first time since the owner’s purchased it.

Passionate collectors of contemporary art, the owners live in one of Weinfeld’s houses further down the street but plan to use this new building for art and design exhibitions and to hold parties and host artists during events like the São Paolo Biennial. 

Isay Weinfeld is a native of São Paulo and has been working as an architect for 40 years. Today, he has a large practice of 30 architects and has worked on some of the city’s key commercial and residential projects and won several awards. It can take up to three years for a project to be completed for clients and Weinfeld likes to form a close working relationship with them. The owners of Casa Cubo commissioned him to design the building for them after he had already designed the renovation of their current house and created a house for one of the couple's parents many years earlier.  

This house has not one but two staircases that appear to float above the floor. The dramatic curving wooden spiral leads up from the mezzanine library to a sitting room and three bedrooms on the top floor. The deep, rich hues of the ironwood are carefully matched and aligned to bring out the grain of the timber. The other angular steel stair is set against one wall of the living room and seems be suspended without any structural support

The extensive use of glass allows the 715 square metre building to feel intimately connected to the lush garden that surrounds the house. The rich, tropical green of the plants and lily pond outside are a foil to the bright, cool whites of the interior. The tall, light-filled living room is the main display space for paintings, sculptures and mid-century design classics including chairs by Alvar Aalto, Pierre Jeanneret and Gio Ponti. The polished concrete floor is covered by a free-form yellow rug designed by Isay Weinfeld.

On the ground level of the house are a kitchen and a dining room and an entrance hall that leads into the main living and exhibition space. The mezzanine library level has a shelving unit that runs along the back wall above a long, low strip of glass next to the floor bringing in views of the garden.

The linear, cubic form of the exterior of the building is divided into three levels vertically and has a graphic look created with glass, concrete panel cladding and bands of wood on the top floor. Buried within burgeoning tropical foliage, the Casa Cubo's restrained exterior gives little away about it's striking Modernist interior or the contemporary art collection it houses. 

To see more of Isay Weinfeld's work visit the studio's website: 

www.isayweinfeld.com

Click on photographs for full-screen slideshow

Antony Gormley's composition of life-size figures male figures hang from the ceiling as an art installation above the living room.

The curving ironwood stairs float suspended above the polished concrete floor of the mezzanine level library.

The top floor gallery with a wall displaying art works leads to a sitting room and three bedrooms to house visiting artists. 

The mezzanine library has long, slender bookshelves above a window that looks over the garden's trees.

A sleek wooden desk offers a space for work, reading and drawing in the library.

The double-height living space with it's mix of mid-century classics by Pierre Jeanneret, Alvar Aalto, Gio Ponti. 

A large sculpture by Tony Cragg sits below the steel suspended staircase and its texture contrasts with the wall of Brazilian ironwood cupboards.

The large living room provides the central gallery space in the house to exhibit art works and host parties for artists visiting the Brazilian capital.

The graphic exterior of the house is created from linear lines and a mix of materials: glass, concrete plaque cladding and wood.

Lush tropical vegetation surrounds the building and gives no indication of the contemporary art and design within the house.

Italian Artist Agostino Iacurci's New Exhibition Opens in Rome

As a preview to his show, Agostino Iacurci created the public piece Zero Infinito on the facade of the building of IISS Di Vittorio-Lattanzio, in via Aquilonia, near Wunderkammern Gallery. Photograph by Andreas Romagnoli

Italian artist Agostino Iacurci’s new exhibition Small Wheel, Big Wheel is at Wunderkammern Gallery in Rome. Andreas Romagnoli and Jeanne-Marie Cilento talk to the artist about his latest works and what inspires him

AGOSTINO Iacurci emerged first as one of the new, young Italian artists in the world of Street Art. His giant murals on the sides of buildings depict bulbous figures that seem to step out of a fairytale world. Yet while the jovial, larger-than-life characters suggest both the innocence and naive charm of a storybook they resonate with a sense of encroaching menace with their sightless, immobile faces.

Today, Iacurci’s paintings, drawings and installations are also exhibited in galleries around the world. His new show explores the notion of play as a moment in quotidian life where there is space for imagination and freedom. The exhibited works depict simple actions like riding a bike or sitting on a swing but suggest other darker worlds of more profound, complex experience. The artist focuses on the playground as a place symbolising play in a public space.

Iacurci's work in Rome can be seen in the international context of his projects that now stretch from Moscow to Paris. His work, including paintings, drawings and etchings have been presented at exhibitions and festivals in Europe, Japan, Korea, Taiwan and the United States. The artist has painted murals in public spaces for Roma Tre University, Fubon Art Foundation in Taipei, the Fine Art Academy of Rome, the University Campus of Besançon in France, the Saba School in Algeria and ~ together with the inmates ~ two massive works on the walls of the maximum security zone of Rebibbia prison.

The new show includes drawings, paintings, objects and installations. Small Wheel, Big Wheel is part of the larger project Public & Confidential which involves five of the most influential street artists on the international scene.

1. What are you working on now?

Right now I'm leaving for Brazil, where I will make a mural on the walls of a hospital in Belo Horizonte and a number of other art works in other cities.

2. What inspires you for your current work?

My main source of inspiration in recent years are travel, books and exhibitions. Each place, catalogue or museum helps to explore a layering of images, memories and ideas that emerge randomly in time, perhaps through different associations and become part of my work.

3. Why did you choose painting and sculpture as your artistic métier?

I started painting instinctively and innocently very early at around 11 years old and I have never abandoned this practice. Although over the years my subject, approach and awareness have changed radically. There was no exact moment when I chose painting as a profession even though I've invested a lot of energy so that it could become the main occupation and effort of my days.

4. Can you describe the experience, person or training that has had the greatest impact on your artistic career?

The experience that has had the greatest impact on my development as a muralist was the discovery of the first works of Blue and Erica and The Dog. In those years, I was little more than a teenager, I was passionate about underground culture, comics, graffiti and self-produced creations. These types of works were enlightening because it showed everything I loved in a new and unique way.

Looking at painting, however, things are a little different. My paintings show my training as an illustrator but the experience that most influenced me in both good and bad ways was attending painting classes at the Academy of Fine Arts in Rome. Despite the limitations and frustration you feel in those classrooms, it was the first place where I breathed in the atmosphere of something like an atelier, a place dedicated only to creation.

5. What do you find the most challenging aspect of your work?

I would say that the most challenging part for me is brainstorming, even before the work materialises and encounters technical problems. Also as a street artist, the climatic conditions combined with very tight production time when working outdoors can also be very stressful.

6. Where do you like to draw or make the first sketch of your works?

At home, alone and surrounded by my books and listening to the right music.

7. Do you have a set schedule of work or the process is more fluid?

I always try to give myself a calendar and to have a precise agenda but in the end I often lose a lot of time creating useless road maps. So I’ve opted for a more fluid process in which visual memory, combined with adrenaline and a curiosity to see the work finished inspires me to get it done.

8. Do you find your creative process more rational or instinctive? 

If you want to try to outline the process, the first phase of inspiration or intuition - that is usually the most instinctive. Later, I tend to rationalise and to incorporate that inspiration into a grid of thought and a cultural context. In fact, like all complex processes I don’t think it's possible to separate the different components: all of them, to varying degrees, participate in the creative process at the same time.

9. Is there a city or place in the world that inspires you the most? 

Well I must say that having lived a lot of time in Rome, it has had a great influence on my growth and consequently on my personality and my work. Among the cities that I have visited several times I would say that Moscow, with its contradictions and its great people, has a special place. Every time I seem to find myself in the pages of The Master and Margarita, one of my favourite novels .

10. In the digital age what is the value of painting as an art form?

I believe that the digital world can add value to painting and contemporary art in general. In one sense, it reaffirms the value and necessity of hand-made art as opposed to the process of dematerialisation created by the digital age. On the other hand, it allows creators and artists to share information and create a huge network of relationships, friendships and the ability to exchange and promote our work. 

Agostino Iacurci's exhibition Small Wheel, BigWheel is on until March 22nd at Wunderkammern Gallery at Via Serbelloni 24, Rome Italy. The gallery is open from Wednesday until Saturday from 5-8pm: www.wunderkammern.net

Click on photographs for full-screen slideshow

Young Italian artist Agostino Iacurci at the opening of his new show in Rome at Wunderkammern Gallery. Photograph by Andreas Romagnoli

Iaucurci talking to the crowd of some 600 people that turned up to the opening of his new exhibition in Rome. Photograph by Andreas Romagnoli

Small Wheel, Big Wheel is part of Wunderkammern Gallery's Public & Confidential series of exhibitions showing the world's top street artists. Photograph by Andreas Romagnoli

A Dismisura D'Uomo 2014 Acrylic on canvas 220 x 220cm. Photograph by Andreas Romagnoli 

 Nice to Meet You 2014 Acrylic on canvas 200 x 150cm. Photograph by Andreas Romagnoli 

See You 2014 Acrylic on canvas 200 x 150cm. Photograph by Andreas Romagnoli

View of Iacurci's exhibition at Wunderkammern Gallery in Rome. Photograph by Andreas Romagnoli

The Escape 2014 Acrylic on canvas 150 x 200cm with Wooden Horse I 2014 Painted wood 90 x 70 x 40cm. Photograph by Andreas Romagnoli

Detail of A Man Painted Wood 2014 62 x 127 x 62cm. Photograph by Andreas Romagnoli

Detail of A Man Painted Wood 2014 62 x 127 x 62cm. Photograph by Andreas Romagnoli

Detail of A Dismisura D'Uomo 2014 Acrylic on canvas 220 x 220cm. Photograph by Andreas Romagnoli

Detail of A Man Painted Wood 2014 62 x 127 x 62cm. Photograph by Andreas Romagnoli

Detail of Wooden Horse I 2014 Painted wood 90 x 70 x 40cm. Photograph by Andreas Romagnoli

View from a doorway into Wunderkammern Gallery's exhibition. Photograph Andreas Romagnoli

A view of A Dismisura D'Uomo 2014 Acrylic on canvas 220 x 220cm. Photograph by Giorgio Coen Cagli courtesy Wunderkammern. 

View from the gallery of See You 2014 Acrylic on canvas 200 x 150cm. Photograph by Giorgio Coen Cagli courtesy Wunderkammern.

Inferences I & II 2014 Acrylic on canvas 70 x 100cm. Photograph by Giorgio Coen Cagli courtesy Wunderkammern.

A series of works on paper 2014 Acrylic  53 x 73cm. Photograph by Giorgio Coen Cagli courtesy Wunderkammern. 

In Case of Emergency III & IV 2014 Fretwork low-relief, acrylic on woo, framed 52.5 x 52.5 x 5.5cm. Photograph by Giorgio Coen Cagli courtesy Wunderkammern.

A Man Painted Wood 2014 62 x 127 x 62cm. Photograph Andreas Romagnoli

A series of works on paper 2014 Acrylic  53 x 73cm. Photograph by Andreas Romagnoli

Il Finto Tondo 2011 Pencil on two colour, hand-made paper, frame 28.5 x 28 x 3.5cm.Photograph by Giorgio Coen Cagli courtesy Wunderkammern. 

Bondage 2014 Acrylic on paper, Framed 53 x 73cm. Photograph by Andreas Romagnolicaption

Altalena 2014 Painted wood 372 x 260 x 87.5cm. Photograph by Giorgio Coen Cagli courtesy Wunderkammern.