The Villa Tugendhat in Brno, Czech Republic

I visited The Villa Tugendhat when I visited the Czech city of Brno a couple of years ago as it is regarded as one of the most important buildings, both historically and architecturally, in the country. The Villa Tugendhat was designed and built in 1930 by German architect Ludwig van der Rohe for the Tugendhat family of Brno and is an early example of ‘functionalism’ in a building and modern architecture. Although the building and design is not to my personal taste it is easy to see why this building is so special and at the time really took peoples breath away. I was built using, what was then a revolutionary new technique (like a modern skyscraper), of a steel frame which meant there was no need for thick supporting walls. As a result of this the front and sides of the building are one solid window with a magnificent view overlooking Brno below it - the upper floors appearing to hover above it (see top picture). Other than the spacious feel of the building the other thing that struck me was the lack of any paintings or decorations on the wall – instead the house has been designed so that key feature walls and areas are made from special materials such as onyx (a polished stone which looks like marble) and wood from rare tropical trees. As I mentioned, the house is also of key historical importance – it was the venue of the 1992 meeting where Czechoslovakia was split into two separate nations – the Czech Republic and Slovakia. Two iconic pieces of furniture where also designed by Ludwig van der Rohe for the house – the Tugendhat chair and the Brno chair.

I did feel it was a shame though that the house, which was specifically designed to be a functional family home, was only lived in for eight years as the Tugendhats, who where Jewish, fled Brno in 1938 after Germany signed the Munich agreement.

The top photo is a scan of a postcard I bought whilst I was there – the other photos come from Wikipedia as you where not aloud to take photos whilst in the house.

The Forbidden Corner

Advertised as ‘the strangest place in the world’ The Forbidden Corner in North Yorkshire really is one of those places you have to see and experience for yourself to really understand it. The best way I can describe the experience is that when you enter The Forbidden Corner it is like becoming Alice in Wonderland and going down the rabbit hole. You given a list of ‘things to see’ when you enter the garden full of cryptic clues such as “The snake pulsates, with light it sheds, Dare you pass, between the heads.” And sure enough as you walk around the winedy footpaths, in and out of woods, through mazes and over bridges you will come across an entrance to a cave in the shape of a snakes mouth. If you go through the cave, after seeing more unusual things such as a village of mice that are attacked by a giant cat, you will appear through a window into another part of the garden. One of the things I like about the experience is that there is no set route, you just wander from clue to clue down the various footpaths meaning if you where to visit again the experience would be completely unique again. Although it is really aimed at children it’s the sort of experience anybody of any age can enjoy, it’s a real life fantasy adventure.

Visit the website at http://www.theforbiddencorner.co.uk

The Freitag Store in Zurich

The Freitag store in Zurich is a brilliant example of a really unusual piece of architecture, a clever use of recycling but most importantly in my opinion a fantastic advert for the company and way of broad casting what it does and its brand values to the world (Freitag is a fashion company that makes bags, wallets, I-pod cases and similar goods out of recycled truck tarpaulins). The store was built on a relatively small plot of land out of 17 disused dry steel containers – the type used for storage and shipping on lorries (which ties in with the truck tarpaulins that they make their good out of) – with the base (the bottom four stories) working as a shop and the rest of the tower as a huge advert for the company and brand. Being built on a brown field site and out of old dry steel containers which have little value after their working life is over the cost both in monetary terms and to the environment will have been a fraction of that if the company had wanted to build a traditional shop in heart of Zurich.

Cathedral Architecture – How to build a Cathedral with Jon Cannon

I watched a very interesting program last night entitled ‘How to build a Cathedral with Jon Cannon’. The program looked to give an insight into how these magnificent buildings where designed and built, in a time when most ordinary people still lived in wooded huts, basic hand held tools, ropes and pulleys where the only tools and they had no concept of modern building design concepts such as stress. The most interesting idea that took from the program was that most of the initial Cathedrals in the UK where built soon after 1066 by the conquering Lords as a way showing their power control over their people. I realised that it is a practice of using architecture as a symbol of your control is still carried out today, this time by international companies who build huge skyscrapers as a way off showing their economic power.

The program, which it still available on Channel 4’s ‘On demand’ service is well worth watching – giving an overview of the evolution of the different design styles, how the master builders used simple repeating patterns and scaling to create hugely complex designs and some of the ingenious ways in which they solved problems.

The Rows – Chester

I visited Chester last week and as part of trip I visited ‘The Rows’, a Tudor period shopping centre. The building itself is magnificent, it is a four-storey black and white timber building the really dominates the area and it is easy to see why people are drawn to it and it makes a fantastic location for the most fashionable shops. Instead of the ground floor shops opening out onto the street they are raised up and back, you reach them by going up a short flight of steps. There is then a covered walkway between the shops provided by the upper floors which sit on ‘stilts’ - I don’t know if the original Tudor architect designed the building to look like this or if it was a case of the upper floors being added at a later date and expanded over the lower ones to create more space. Another really nice feature are the original stone cellars which have also been converted into shops which you step down to from the street – some of these appear to be older than the above building with original stone floors, low ceilings and gothic features making me suspect that they could belong to an original building and the upper floors where added to them. It is a uniquely British building and walking in and out of the shops you really get a sense of walking back in time, a glimpse of what the shopping experience would have been like for our richer ancestors hundreds of years ago and that some things (people still like shopping somewhere they can escape from the British rain) haven’t changed at all.

I was also a nice change to see lots of little unique shops, as many city centres in the UK now look strangely similar with the same height street stores everywhere.