Villa Rothmayer, Cultural monument in Břevnov, Prague, Czech Republic.
Villa Rothmayer is a two-storey house in Břevnov, Prague, built in 1928–1929 by architect Otto Rothmayer as his own family home. It combines a simple cube with a cylinder housing a spiral staircase; at the top of the staircase is a small rectangular room that served as a winter garden and gave access to a flat terrace.
Otto Rothmayer, a pupil of the Slovenian architect Josip Plečnik, built the villa for himself and his wife Božena between 1928 and 1929 in a classicising modernist style, drawing on Plečnik's Stadion villa in Ljubljana. The family lived there until 2008, when their son Jan sold it to the City of Prague on condition that it be restored and opened to the public.
The villa hosted family friends such as photographer Josef Sudek, sculptors Bedřich Stefan and Hana Wichterlová, and glassmaker René Roubíček, whose vases are displayed in the garden. Sudek photographed the garden and published the series as Kouzelná zahrádka (Magic Little Garden).
Visits are by reservation only, with a guide, and can be combined with a tour of the nearby Müller Villa. The three-year reconstruction cost 23 million korunas and restored the house to its late 1950s and early 1960s appearance.
The garden's tall ash tree was planted by Otto Rothmayer in 1930 as an already mature tree and was declared a significant tree in 2019. Photographer Josef Sudek, a family friend, published a series of photographs of the garden as Kouzelná zahrádka (Magic Little Garden).
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