The house is built on an incline, with the living area on the southern side with a view of the garden and the Brno cityscape. Several changes were made during construction. The final design of the house was decided on around July 1929, when work on the foundations was begun. In September 1928 Mies went to Brno to view the lot on which the house was to be built, and on the evening of 31 December 1928, the first sketches were discussed.
After viewing several of Mies’ buildings, including the Wolff house in Guben, they commissioned the Berlin architect to design their new house. They shared a preference for a modern style and an aversion to traditional interiors. The owners, Grete Weiss Löw-Beer and Fritz Tugendhat, met Mies in Berlin in 1927 before their marriage. Situated on a slope to provide ample views, the Tugendhat House echoed Mies’ use of continuous space first realized in the German Pavilion in Barcelona (1929).
Among the most significant private houses of the 20th century, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe’s Tugendhat House represents a material unity of steel, stone, and glass.
