While many around the world might immediately think of Philip Johnson’s iconic Glass House in Connecticut, the Czech Skleněný dům —formally the (or sometimes referred to in historical contexts as the Bayerova vila )—holds its own unique, and tragically brief, place in the canon of modernist architecture.
After the Communist coup in 1948, the house was neglected. The glass panels were replaced with cheap, opaque materials. The interior was divided into small offices and storage rooms. For nearly 50 years, Gočár’s masterpiece was a forgotten ruin—hidden behind overgrown foliage and a layer of drab, post-war neglect. skleneny dum
Completed in , the house broke every rule of traditional Central European villa design. At a time when neighbors were building solid, brick Neo-Baroque and Neo-Classical homes, Gočár delivered a steel-framed structure wrapped almost entirely in industrial glass. While many around the world might immediately think