Novel inspired by Villa Tugendhat nominated for Man Booker Prize

Novel The Glass Room by Simon Mawer is among the 13 books nominated for Man Booker Prize this year. The interesting thing is that the novel is inspired by Villa Tugendhat in Brno and the complicated life of their original Jewish owners.

Wealthy Jewish car manufacturer Viktor Landauer and his gentile wife Liesel have been made a gift of land by Liesel’s parents to build their own house. “Something good and solid,” Liesel’s father advises. But Viktor doesn’t want something good and solid: what he wants is something modern. And what he gets is a modernist masterpiece, Der Glasraum, the Glass Room.

The architect employed by Viktor is a man named Rainer von Abt, a disciple of Adolf Loos. “I wish to take Man out of the cave and float him in the air,” Von Abt proclaims. “I wish to give him a glass space to inhabit.” The house, when it is built, has vast windows, an onyx wall, white ceilings and white floors. It is the definitive modern house, for definitive modern people.

A review in The Guardian

I’ll buy and read the novel as soon as possible.

Source: iDnes.cz.

Tagged as: books, literature, Villa Tugendhat