Why a Booktrail?
1930s, WW2 – A house which seems to reflect the horrors of war in the city and the country outside its walls
The Glass Room
What you need to know before your trail
High on a hill in Czechoslovakia, in the fictional town of Mēsto, the Landauer House has been built for newlyweds Viktor and Liesel Landauer, a Jew married to a gentile. This house is commissioned to be a symbol of light and space influenced by artists popular at the time. It may look harsh from the outside yet it is something else inside.
However World War 2 is on the horizon and the family is forced to flee the city and so their home. The story of the house, of the glass room is just beginning.
Travel Guide
The house on the hill is a testament not just the artist who built and designed it but as it changes hands and various occupants, it is also a viewpoint on the world below as it changes under the shadow of war.
The fate of the house is intrinsically tied up with the fate of those inside it. Before the war life is good and life almost reflects the clean lines of the house.
“Living inside a work of art is an experience of sublime delight – the tranquillity of the large living room and the intimacy of the smaller rooms . . . the most remarkable experience of modern living”.
Then the war comes and it is invaded by the Nazis who turn it into a research centre of sorts as they make their horrific plans of creating that one superior Aryan race.
The Landauer house in Mesto is in reality The Villa Tugendhat in Brno built in 1930. To see the house in reality and to experience its story is to see the story come to life before your very eyes.
And outside of the city, the Villa Müller, built in the late 1920s by Adolf Loos, the man who is referenced in the book is also said to evoke the house and the ideal behind it.
Where Next?
