
I visited this WHS in Summer 2019. I knew that I needed to book in advance to secure a spot to visit the interior. That said, since the villa is privately owned and poorly managed by young unwelcoming staff who have no clue what customer care is, don't be surprised if your visit get's cancelled as late as one day before simply to accomodate a private company or a private function. This is what happened on the day I was supposed to visit.
Basically, while I was busy travelling from one WHS to another, as late as 15:45 on the day before I received an automatic email that my booking was cancelled. On their rather non-user-friendly website ( perhaps a premonition of the staff in general EXCEPT the elderly gardeners who look after the villa surroundings), a short notice was displayed saying that the Villa was closed and off-limits for tourists as a last-minute event had been organised for blind locals. That meant not even the gardens! Since I was staying in Brno only for 1 night and all the other days were fully booked I was forced to forget visiting the villa's interior and had to make up for that by peaking through the huge glass wall and windows from the gardens as though I hadn't booked ahead.
Obviously I wasn't happy, but what frustrated me the most was the I-couldn't-care-less-attitude of the very young staff manning the Tugendhat villa ticket desk and souvenir shop. Most of them seemed very annoyed by the continuous flow of visitors asking possibly similar questions. Their responses in general were telegraphic and at times quite rude. On the other hand, two elderly gardeners looking after the villa gardens were utterly ashamed of their colleague's attitude and behaviour with visitors in general, and timidly approached many disappointed visitors in polite manner and provided some short explanations on the villa in general and on its importance.
For me the Tugendhat villa's highlight, apart from its modern architecture qualities, was the splendid view over Brno from the terrace (photo) and the privacy the villa enjoys thanks to the way it is constructed. Once inside the 'compound', it's as if you're isolated in a green space with a magnificent view of the city, even though in actual fact there are neighboring buildings everywhere. There is a chrome UNESCO WHS plaque on the floor of what is really part of the villa's upper terrace. The views from the garden are quite limited although it doesn't seem you'll be losing much, at least not as much as other inscribed WHS such as the Rietveld Schröder House in Utrecht.
Even though I'm not much of a modern architecture fan, I wouldn't consider the Tugendhat Villa worthy of inscription on its own. I think the approach of a serial nomination as is the case with the Le Corbusier WHS, Frank Lloyd WHS, Mumbai Art Deco WHS, is much better at least for someone like myself who's not a modern architecture enthusiast. At least you can visit a number of sites and appreciate different important aspects better that way. The fact you can at least view the interior, is much better than a visit of Stoclet House for example. However, the exterior of the Stoclet House immediately conveyed a sense of wonder and curiosity to me, something which I found lacking at the Tugendhat Villa. Perhaps its OUV can be better appreciated by those who love the A++ rated modern houses which look like matchboxes without the possibility of opening windows (there are a lot of them in Luxembourg and they are nicknamed 'houses-without-character' by those who prefer being able to open windows for some fresh air!).
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