Czech Republic Wanderings

Brno
Mies van der Rohe’s 1929 Villa Tugendhat is the twin of his Barcelona Pavilion. Roadside it conceals its beauty, squat and defensive. Inside, the house begins to make sense. The footprint of the villa is embedded into a hillside which drops away to the rear. The back wall is all glass and retracts into the floor in a Bond-villianish way. Natural light bounces off an Onyx wall and van der Rohe’s Barcelona and Brno chairs split the internal space. Dark bookshelves line one wall and the divide between indoor and outdoor space is blurred by plants and textured stone tiles. Internal photography was not allowed. I had to focus sneakily when the guide turned her back, creeping around in my squeaking plastic overshoes. Outside the rain poured onto a tatty canopy.

Hotel Avion was the creation of Bohuslav Fuchs, a local architect whose adversity to decoration came to define Functionalism. The hotel was built in the 1920s but was subsequently given a communist makeover. What's left is the anthithisis of the boutique hotel.

I walked into reception and was immediately asked to pay. This made me a little wary. My room was on the fifth floor, a juddering lift ride away. Beautiful views and just as well as the room was spiritless. By the bed sat a chunky radio from Dubceck's era, complete with imprinted stations for Bratislava and Praha. A phone from the 1980s and a button-less television from more recent times completed the entertainment, inoperable without remote. The bathroom contained one of those horrible sticky shower curtains which attached itself like a second skin.

The brown decor covered all the shades of the Communist rainbow. A faded square of brighter brown told of better days, days of pictures on the wall. Outside was where it was at; a terrace twice the size of the room and all mine. I plugged in my ipod, opened some Moravian wine and the terrace became my private dancefloor.

Railway Station
I walked downhill to the railway station along cobbled streets cut with tramlines. Teenagers dressed in orange t-shirts swarmed around the entrance hall. Nuns with huge rucksacks fussed and organised. One group assembled in the corner and sang and clapped. The words were religious, I’ve no doubt of that, but the harmonies and beauty of the song made the hairs on my neck stand to attention. In a city that delights in functional architecture, these students took a different approach, using the building’s tall ceilngs and natural acoustics to create something unexpected. I bought my ticket to Olomouc from a man behind a dusty screen. Even he was in awe.

Olomoucs
Olomoucs was a ‘look up’ city, a neck strainer of a place. I arrived in the main square at midday, just as the astronomical clock sprang to life. Clicks and whirrs sounded from within and painted figures danced a mechanical waltz. A crowd gathered amid the clangs and bongs and kids gazed at the stilted and primitive performance.

Telc
Telc is a gorgeous place, a medieval square decorated by Italian masons and surrounded by ponds. Outside a new town encroaches but doesn't overlap. Telc’s geography has preserved it. Outside one chequerboard mansion sat a Skoda, parked like a photographic spoiler but at least it suggested Telc wasn’t just camera candy. Real people lived here too. Telc’s beauty has created a tourist boom and pizzerias and souvenir shops peep behind the renaissance facades.