Leo Brummel’s Apartment

The interior is not open to the public.

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Around the same time as the home for Jan and Jana Brummel, i.e., between 1928-1929, an apartment for Jan’s brother, Leo Brummel, and his family was made in their home at Klatovská 140. Leo and Gertrude had Loos design their dining room and adjacent lounge. The commission was much more financially modest than Loos’ other projects; the built-in furniture was made of cheap spruce wood, however, it was non-traditionally lacquered with a high-gloss automobile varnish with a dark red colour combined with black moulding. The room’s colouring was relatively distinct and contrasting. An American stove was used in the lounge with a yellow travertine veneer, the wall above which was painted green, and the bookcases above the black sofas were also yellow, but the small stools around them were a play of pea green. Adolf Loos surely appreciated this colourful, yet proportionally modest design, given he built a copy of the dining room in 1931 at the international exposition of interior design in Cologne.

Unfortunately and much like the others, the family wasn’t able to use the apartment for very long. In 1941, everyone was first moved out of the house, then deported two years later from Pilsen to the concentration camp Terezín, and again, only two months later to Auschwitz, where Leo, Gertrude, and Elisabeth (Lilka) were killed. Out of the entire Leo Brummel family, only the 16-year-old daughter Eva survived, who managed to take one of the last “children’s trains” to Great Britain. Sadly, her sister, who was three years younger than Eva, didn’t go with her because she was too afraid to travel without her parents.

Part of the family’s apartment survives today. Currently, the apartment is the property of a private owner, who actually lives in this space, meaning it’s inaccessible to the public.