Presented in co-operation with the Goethe-Institut Irland
After the great success of HAUS TUGENDHAT at this year’s Dublin International Film Festival, the Irish Architecture Foundation and the Goethe-Institut Irland presented Dieter Reifahrt’s outstanding documentary at the Sugar Club in Dublin.
Tugendhat is a legendary word in modern design; the name refers to the seminal house created by the German architect Mies van der Rohe for the Tugendhat family outside Brno in the Czech Republic in 1930. This beautiful and reflective documentary acknowledges the house as a modernist monument but is more absorbed by its role as catalyst for human events in the years after its construction – interactions which reflect on the wider travails of 20th century European history.
Brno, Czech Republic: Slowly, almost reverentially, the camera approaches the simple white facade before gliding through one of the extensive glazed outer walls into the innards of the building. The first minutes of Dieter Reifarth’s documentary HAUS TUGENDHAT are a careful approach to this icon of modern architecture, designed by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe. Built in 1930 as a family home for the cosmopolitan Jewish family Tugendhat, the villa was threatened by neglect for decades ever since their escape from the Nazis. Dieter Reifarth dedicates his film to both, the destiny of the family and the destiny of the house. Thanks to numerous interviews and original documents his film is multi-faceted, but still characterized by minimalist aesthetics.
Director: Dieter Reifarth
Country of Origin: Germany
Duration: 116 minutes
Year: 2013
Language: German, English subtitles