The project for the Tugendhat villa from the canceled competition belongs to Brno

Brno - Brno can manage the project for the renovation of Villa Tugendhat, which originated from a competition that was later canceled. The city hall has agreed with its author - the company Omnia, that it will obtain the copyright to the project and also guarantees against potential defects if construction were to take place according to it. The mayor's deputy Daniel Rychnovský (KDU-ČSL) said this to journalists today. Although the city had already paid nine million crowns for the project, it canceled the competition from which it originated last year. The document thus remained in boxes at the city hall, but without the rights for the city to manage it.
    "We signed an agreement that we owe each other nothing," said the deputy.
    The city will first use the project for an international conference of architects and restorers. It will take place in Brno next week, and experts should state whether they agree with the proposed method of heritage restoration. If they express such agreement, the chances that construction will actually proceed according to the documentation will increase.
    The experts' approval would then also affect the planning of the renovation. Councilors had previously announced their intention to order the restoration of the villa as a turnkey project - they planned that construction companies would acquire the project themselves. However, if the city hall also owned the project according to which it would want to restore the villa, the concept of a turnkey renovation would lose its meaning.
    Rychnovský did not want to comment on how the city hall would proceed, stating that everything is too early and in addition a complicated legal issue. However, if the project succeeds before European restorers, art historians, and architects, it could also be used for the renovation of the villa in stages. "Because the heritage authorities have already given us deadlines and ultimatums for some parts of the villa to be renovated by next year," said Rychnovský. For example, the roof and statics must be repaired by mid-2010.
    The city has managed Villa Tugendhat since 1994, and in 2001 it was registered as the only Czech building of modern art on the UNESCO list. The heritage restoration was supposed to begin soon, but planning the repairs was delayed by disputes among architects. The tender for selecting the designer from 2003 was assessed several times by the antimonopoly office and courts made contradictory decisions about it. Ultimately, the councilors canceled the competition last year.