22 March 2007

Mies Masterpiece in trouble

As some of you know, some of my earliest exposure to architecture was very squarely within the Mies-ian tradition. I remain an undeterred fan and find many of the criticisms of his work to simply display a misunderstanding of it on the part of the critic. So it pains me to read the report in the New York Times that his Tugendhat House in Brno is deteriorating while the Tugendhat's and the city can't even agree on who owns it. It also demonstrates, in a larger sense, how hard it is to get Modern buildings maintained as historic structures.

I had considering altering our travel plans a few years ago so we could stop by, but was unsure how much we could see. Man, how I regret that decision.

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