Through the keyhole: Adolf Loos interiors in Pilsen

The Brummel House, 1928, 58 Husova Street
This five-room apartment belonged to Jan Brummel and his family, a dealer of rare wood and a leading figure in Pilsen society between the wars. It was completed on 10 December 1929, on Loos's 56th birthday. For the project, Loos extended the original 1880s single-family house and reworked the neo-renaissance facade into a more minimal design, enlarging the second-floor flat for the Brummels.

Brummel House

Inside, the Brummel House illustrates his concept of the Raumplan or 'plan of volumes'; here Loos used differing ceiling heights to create a sequence of modulated rooms or units with different functions.

He also utilised devices to pause or disjoint the transition into a room. The poplar-lined dining room, for example, features two pillars that create a small, corridor-like space, originally used by the butler for preparing dishes before serving. Two mirrors in niches either side of the doorway further distort the space.

Brummel House

Two bedrooms of the apartment were dedicated to Brummel's wife Jana's mother, Hedvica Liebstein. Her living room (main picture) was a vibrant, brightly coloured space, lined with yellow built-in furniture and a small, oddly positioned red-brick fireplace that created a cosy seating niche to the left.

Brummel House

The house survived bombing in the Second World War and later was returned to the Brummel family. Following demolition attempts in the Eighties, the house was given the status 'protected interior' and declared a registered landmark in 2002.

Dr Josef Vogl's apartment, 1929, 12 Klatovska Street
Adolf Loos first designed the interior of this apartment on Klatovska Street in 1908 for industrialist Otto Beck, whose daughter, Claire, eventually went on to become the third and final wife of the architect. While working on a new residence for Beck, Loos was asked to redesign the apartment in 1929 for a new tenant, paediatrician Josef Vogl.

The flat was composed of five rooms - living room, dining room, children's room, bedroom and Dr Vogl's consulting room, formerly the boudoir of Mrs Beck. The living room (pictured left) is panelled in golden cherry wood topped with a strip of dark green wallpaper, a familiar motif of Loos that brings the eye to the warm, intimate, lower half of the room.

Dr Josef Vogl's apartment, 1929, 12 Klatovska Street

Directly in the centre of the far wall is a small red-brick fireplace, sandwiched between two marble pilasters, while built-in furniture wraps around the side of the space in the form of a flowered chintz sofa. The opulent, highly symmetrical dining room (below), meanwhile, features light-coloured marble and a series of mirrors that give the illusion of an expansive space.

During the Nazi occupation the house was confiscated by Germans. Today, only the two rooms from Dr Vogl's apartment survive, both furnished with exact replicas of the original furniture.

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