Vilu Wittal in Brno will be brought to life until September by the exhibition about the fates of the house and family

Brno - The interior of the Wittal villa in Pisárky, Brno, which is awaiting reconstruction, will be brought to life starting Friday with exhibition panels summarizing the fate of the villa and its inhabitants. The exhibition "The Story of the Wittal Villa" will be available during so-called urbex tours until September; this coming weekend, people can freely view it during the Open House Brno festival. Štěpán Neubauer, spokesperson for the Museum of the City of Brno, which manages the villa and is preparing its reconstruction, stated this to CTK.

"Until the beginning of the reconstruction, the villa is accessible during so-called urbex tours. These are guided tours, and tickets can be purchased through the Brno ID portal for the specified dates. The exhibition, which presents the story of the villa and the Wittal family on panels, will be accessible until September specifically during the tours," Neubauer said.

The exhibition can be seen exceptionally over the weekend outside of the tours during the Open House Brno festival, in which the villa participates. It will be open on Saturday and Sunday from 9:00 AM to 5:00 PM, with five guided tours planned each day; a concert by Diversa Quartet will take place on Sunday at noon.

The villa, built according to the design of architect Heinrich Blum in 1932 for the Jewish Wittal family, is designed according to functionalist principles with elements of organic design. The family did not inhabit the house for long; after the Nazi occupation, the building was confiscated, management was imposed on it, and it housed the Gestapo. After the war, the communist regime seized the business of the Wittal brothers, which was engaged in textile production, along with the villa, and the building served the city as a representative space. It was later converted into apartments and housed several families.

Last November, the villa was taken over by the Museum of the City of Brno, which is now preparing its reconstruction. It estimates that the costs will reach 60 to 80 million crowns.