We all have a funny story about sneaking in to see a piece of architecture, and mine is about Villa Muller.
In 1991 a professor I knew was teaching for a semester in Prague. She sent me and a friend to see the house and said "you can't get in, but mention the name of the dean of the architecture school to the caretaker (who doesn't speak English), and she MIGHT let you in - but it's a long shot".
We showed up, knocked on the door, and when the caretaker looked out the second floor window we started yelling out the name of the dean - surprisingly she hustled down and let us right in. Totally amazing - the place was empty, and we leisurely sketched and took pictures for about 15 minutes, when another knock came on the door - and in walked the dean with a group of academic visitors for a tour! They toured around for an hour or so, then left - but my friend and I were still hanging out, sketching, etc.
The caretaker started getting huffy with us then...I think she realized we were just students, and had nothing to do with the official visit the dean had brought by! While we were there at least one other group of students came by and she did NOT let them in, they didn't know the magic word, apparently. We took a few more pics and left - and she was glad to see us go!
What lucky timing for us - if the dean hadn't been scheduled to come by that day we never would have gotten in. That house remains one of my all-time favorite works of architecture, and greatly influenced my thesis at Cranbrook.
Aug 15, 05 11:27 am ·
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3 Comments
i've always wished, loos was my granpa.but then again, my regular gran took me to see hagia sophia when i was 7 yo. loos is an imaginary friend now.
the above link to the prague post has been fixed.
We all have a funny story about sneaking in to see a piece of architecture, and mine is about Villa Muller.
In 1991 a professor I knew was teaching for a semester in Prague. She sent me and a friend to see the house and said "you can't get in, but mention the name of the dean of the architecture school to the caretaker (who doesn't speak English), and she MIGHT let you in - but it's a long shot".
We showed up, knocked on the door, and when the caretaker looked out the second floor window we started yelling out the name of the dean - surprisingly she hustled down and let us right in. Totally amazing - the place was empty, and we leisurely sketched and took pictures for about 15 minutes, when another knock came on the door - and in walked the dean with a group of academic visitors for a tour! They toured around for an hour or so, then left - but my friend and I were still hanging out, sketching, etc.
The caretaker started getting huffy with us then...I think she realized we were just students, and had nothing to do with the official visit the dean had brought by! While we were there at least one other group of students came by and she did NOT let them in, they didn't know the magic word, apparently. We took a few more pics and left - and she was glad to see us go!
What lucky timing for us - if the dean hadn't been scheduled to come by that day we never would have gotten in. That house remains one of my all-time favorite works of architecture, and greatly influenced my thesis at Cranbrook.
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