Construction

The architect Otto Rothmayer designed the house for his family in 1928, inspired by the Villa Stadion, completed one year previously in Ljubljana from a design by Jože Plečnik. He slightly altered Plečnik's plans for a small residence with a simple floor plan and spatial organisation to match his own architectonic sensibility in the style of a simple classicist modernism. Similarly, he fully retained the spatial schemata and the size of the rooms, while shaping their use to meet the needs of his own family. This change significantly influenced the villa's street façade, which in contrast to the Ljubljana villa has far more windows to bring greater light inside. Likewise, the Prague villa is simpler in its expression, without any decorative elements, while the gently sloping roof was replaced with a wide flat terrace on the upper level. The most striking feature is the cylindrical staircase volume with its restrained yet aesthetically powerful architectonic details. The broad pergola opening to the garden was added to the northern rear façade shortly after completion.