By Ricky, on March 24th, 2014 Villa Tugendhat © Ricky Yates
Villa Tugendhat in Brno, was designed by the German architect Ludwig Mies van de Rohe and constructed between 1928 -1930 on a hillside slope overlooking the city centre. It was commissioned by the wealthy Jewish industrialist Fritz Tugendhat and his wife Greta and was their home for eight years before the couple, along with their children, were forced to flee to Switzerland following the dismembering of Czechoslovakia brought about by the Munich agreement of September 1938.
An icon of modern architecture, today Villa Tugendhat is considered one of the finest examples of functionalist design anywhere in the world. A revolutionary iron framework allowed Mies to dispense with supporting walls and massive plate glass windows give the extensive living space a wonderful feeling of space and light. The minimalist interior is famous for featuring an onyx wall and for using rare tropical hardwood.
. . . → Read More: Villa Tugendhat, Brno and the novel by Simon Mawer entitled ‘The Glass Room’
By Ricky, on March 23rd, 2014 Sherry with Mr Oscar and Šárek © Ricky Yates
On Friday 21st March, Senior Cat Oscar celebrated his seventeenth birthday! Aided by his tin openers, aka Ricky and Sybille, he invited a small number of his human friends, to attend a birthday party held in his honour, the following afternoon.
It was unfortunate that the Hellam family, who have previously looked after Oscar on a number of occasions when Sybille & I have been away, were unable to attend because of illness. However, Oscar’s two adult American friends, Karen and Sherry, were able to be present. Karen always refers to Oscar as ‘her buddy’, whilst Sherry always addresses him as ‘Mr Oscar’. Oscar very much approves of both designations 🙂
As was to be expected, most entertainment was provided by Šárek, the ginger kitten we adopted last August, who is rapidly becoming a fully-fledged teenager, with . . . → Read More: Oscar’s 17th Birthday Party
By Ricky, on March 13th, 2014 The tower of the Church of St. Kunhuta, Nové Mesto na Morave © Ricky Yates
Following worship in Brno last Sunday evening, I stayed overnight with a family who are members of the congregation, in order on the next day, to meet up and have lunch with a Czech-British couple living near Olomouc. After a most enjoyable lunch, I headed back across the Vysocina (Highlands), in order to meet up with a Czech teacher of English, living and working in Žd’ár nad Sázavou, who has been using part of the text of this blog, as teaching material with his students.
Being ahead of myself time-wise for my meeting with the Czech teacher on Monday evening, I stopped off about ten kilometres short of Žd’ár nad Sázavou, to explore the small town of Nové Mesto na Morave. The town’s name literally means ‘New Town in Moravia’. But like many . . . → Read More: The Church of St. Kunhuta, Nové Mesto na Morave
By Ricky, on March 9th, 2014 The Vltava River & Charles Bridge © Ricky Yates
I hope my regular readers will forgive me for tackling a current political issue. However, as Ukraine is almost on the doorstep of the Czech Republic, I thought it appropriate to reflect on how the current crisis is seen here, and the impact the crisis may have in the near future.
Before proceeding any further, I should point out that it is not quite as close as one American TV news channel tried to illustrate. MSNBC successfully reinvented Czechoslovakia, a country that ceased to exist on 31st December 1992, and showed it as bordering Ukraine as can be seen in this link. Just to confirm, whilst Slovakia does border Ukraine, the Czech Republic does not.
What may surprise many people is the fact that Ukrainians are by far the largest group of immigrants by nationality, living and . . . → Read More: The Ukraine crisis as seen from the Czech Republic
By Ricky, on March 3rd, 2014
Silvia (Slovak), Karen (American), Ata (Iranian), Yours Truly (English) Jack (Irish) © Sybille Yates
To worship at St. Clement’s, Prague on any Sunday is always a great joy, with the possible exception of a few occasions in the depths of winter when coping with the cold can be a little difficult 🙁 But our worship yesterday morning was particularly special for two reasons.
Firstly, my good friend and ministerial colleague, Rev’d Dr Karen Moritz, was our preacher. As I have explained in two previous blog posts, ‘Welcome to another Karen‘ and ‘Pentecost in Prague‘, Karen is an ordained minister of word and sacrament in the Presbyterian Church (USA), and since September 2010 has been a Mission Co-worker with the Ceskobratrská církve evangelické / Evangelical Church of Czech Brethren, (Lutheran – Presbyterian), working in the Ecumenical Department at their denominational headquarters. The CCE / . . . → Read More: A very special Sunday morning
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