Behind the Glass

The Villa Tugendhat, designed by Mies van der Rohe in 1928, is an icon of architectural modernism and a UNESCO World Heritage site. Behind the Glass tells the true story of the large family connected to it, who rose to prominence through industrial textile manufacturing.The book traces the transformations in the life of the family, from their roots in a Jewish ghetto to part of the wealthy bourgeoisie in the Austro-Hungarian Empire to adaptation in interwar independent Czechoslovakia and flight in the face of Nazi invasion. Michael Lambek examines the generation born in the first decade of the twentieth century, especially Grete Tugendhat – Lambek’s maternal grandmother – who commissioned, inhabited, championed, and relinquished the distinctive modern house.An exploration of life in and surrounding the Villa Tugendhat offers a factual portrait that runs counter to the fictional one portrayed in Simon Mawer’s The Glass Room. The book also provides unpublished correspondence between Martin Heidegger and Ernst Tugendhat, Grete’s son, as well as a description of the impact of a 2017 family reunion.Behind the Glass reflects on the meaning of a "family" and suggests that it is more than a nuclear household – a family reproduces itself over generations, a product of how it represents itself and is represented by others.

"Behind the Glass is the story of a great Moravian Jewish family in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries and the architectural marvel in which they lived. Anthropologist Michael Lambek writes of his kin and their world with frankness, affection, and deep social insight. A fascinating and timely account." - Natalie Zemon Davis, Professor of History, University of Toronto, "Exceptional architecture depends on enlightened clients. This book focuses on the remarkable Tugendhat family and sheds some light on the courage, patience, and foresight that helped create one of the most spectacular houses of the twentieth century." - Dietrich Neumann, Professor of the History of Modern Architecture and Urbanism, Brown University, "This rich and immensely perceptive book tells the story of an illustrious family known for, among other things, the family house designed by Mies van der Rohe. The book is written from two unusual perspectives, one the insider view of a family member, the other the external view of an anthropologist. It is a story of family, architecture, and philosophy. I was struck by the similarities between the stories of Ernest Tugendhat's and Ludwig Wittgenstein's families. Both families contributed to the construction of emblematic modernist buildings - in Wittgenstein's case, the building he helped design for his sister; both feature towering figures of philosophy; and both faced difficult choices under the Nazis, who considered them to be Jewish families." - Avishai Margalit, Former George F. Kenna Professor in the institute for Advanced Study Princeton, "Through the lens of both an ethnographer and a son, Lambek takes us to the symbolic heart of his extended family - Tugendhat House, a striking early example of Mies van der Rohe's modernist work, commissioned by his grandparents in the years between world wars. Lambek offers us a sophisticated and thoughtful examination of how the idea of a family is rooted in the sources - both material and symbolic - that come to represent it." - Camilla Gibb, award-winning author of Sweetness in the Belly

Michael Lambek is a professor emeritus of anthropology at the University of Toronto Scarborough. He held a Canada Research Chair in the Anthropology of Ethical Life from 2006 to 2020 and was elected a fellow of the Royal Society of Canada in 2000.