Villa Tugendhat, Brno, Czech Republic – in pictures

A look inside the recently restored Mies van der Rohe 'glass villa', the world's first steel-framed house

Fri 6 Apr 2012 09.00 EDT First published on Fri 6 Apr 2012 09.00 EDT

  • Designed by Mies van der Rohe for Jewish industrialists Grete and Fritz Tugendhat and completed in 1930, the Villa Tugendhat was taken over by the Nazis and later the Soviet army during the second world war. Now it has been returned to its original glory

  • The living area at the centre of the villa photographed in 2007, before its restoration

  • The central living area after restoration. Its glass walls are designed to sink into the ground

  • The villa's original owners described it as 'a modern spacious house… with clear and simple shapes' that gave 'a completely special calm'. It was 'austere and grand – not in a way that oppresses, but one that liberates'

  • Study with a wall in thin onyx slabs quarried from the Atlas mountains

  • The circular dining alcove, panelled with macassar ebony. The timber was removed by the Nazis during the war and installed in Brno’s Gestapo headquarters, which later became a student cafeteria. The panelling was reinstated in the recent restoration

  • The original chairs with which Mies van der Rohe furnished the space have been reinstated

  • A bedroom in the Villa Tugendhat

  • Bathroom at Villa Tugendhat

  • The villa's simplicity was seen as daring when it was built. Within a year of its completion, a German architectural magazine asked: 'Can one live in Villa Tugendhat?'

  • The villa is built against a steep slope, with the living space in the middle of three levels
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