In the 1930’s, Adolf Loos, an Austrian and Czechoslovak architect devised Raumplan, a design concept favouring functionalism and free-flowing spaces. Winternitz Villa in Prague encapsulates Raumplan, and stands as the last built house that Loos completed. Loos details the concept below:
My architecture is not conceived in plans, but in spaces (cubes). I do not design floor plans, facades, or sections. I design spaces. For me, there is no ground floor, first floor etc… For me, there are only contiguous, continual spaces, rooms, anterooms, terraces etc. Stories merge and spaces relate to each other. Every space requires a different height: the dining room is surely higher than the pantry, thus the ceilings are set at different levels. To join these spaces in such a way that the rise and fall are not only unobservable but also practical, in this I see what is for others the great secret, although it is for me a great matter of course.
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The residence's exterior is decorless and made up of windows and terraces that open the house to free-flowing natural light across its six levels. Villa Winternitz is rather modest compared to Loof’s better-known Villa Müller, he swaps out the green marble and silk for brick, plaster and wood. The entrance is unassuming, with a small corridor sitting behind the door that proceeds either to the basement housing the gardener’s flat or the living room.
The living room is the most noteworthy space in the villa and the embodiment of Raumplan. Every room within this area (including the dining room and drawing room) is varying of height and size, and every room is designed according to its intended purpose. As a result, the cube-style rooms are assembled into a layered, continuous space. Additionally, the southern wall of the living room houses the window that facilitates the flow of natural light across the varying levels throughout the day.
Contrasting the plain exterior, the living room uses warm-toned materials such as bricks, oakwood and wallpaper to re-establish a homely and familial feel to the space.
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The first floor primarily consists of the bedrooms, cloakroom and the first-floor terrace. There was significant reconfiguration to the floor plan whilst the villa was repurposed as a kindergarten and the bedroom walls were knocked down to facilitate a large play area, however, the reconstruction ensured the missing walls were replaced. The first-floor terrace is directly accessible from the bedrooms but was minimally used in comparison to the second-floor terrace which boasts views of the city.
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The basement is accessed through a challenging staircase that leads to unevenly sized rooms consisting of the gardener’s flat, the cellar, the boiler room and the laundry room. As Raumplan is used throughout the rest of the house, the basement accommodates clusters of rooms of varying levels that are connected by the same red-tiled steps.
Winternitz Villa - History
Adolf Loos and Karel Lhota were commissioned by Prague lawyer Josef Winternitz to design a family home for his wife and two children. The family lived in the Villa until 1941 when the Nazis confiscated all Jewish properties. During this period, the Winternitz family was deported to Auschwitz where Josef and his son Peter were immediately murdered, his wife Jenny and his daughter Suzana worked in the factories where they managed to survive the winters due to the heat from the machinery. The city of Prague bought the villa from the Nazi institution and repurposed it as a kindergarten until 1947.
Following the war, Jenny and Suzana returned to Prague to be faced with an inheritance tax imposed by the Czechoslovak state, with no income or property to leverage, the Winternitz family transferred ownership of the villa to the state. The family did not visit nor speak of the villa until 1991 when surviving relatives learned of their claim. The villa was remarkably restored by Josef Winternitz’s grandson and opened to the public, the restoration is as captured in the photographs above.