Vienna's Villa Rezek, a masterpiece of 1930s modernist architecture that was nearly demolished by investors, has been restored to its former glory through the extraordinary persistence of architect Max Eisenköck. The Austrian Federal Monuments Office praised the six-year restoration project that brought back the dignity of one of Vienna's most significant and mysterious houses from the early 1930s.
The villa, designed by Hans Glas, a student of renowned architect Adolf Loos, represents a stunning example of modernist design. Architecture expert Friedrich Achleitner once called it one of Vienna's most important and enigmatic houses of the early 1930s, noting that the barely known architect's name, Hans Glas, seemed almost like a pseudonym. The building's sleek yacht-like appearance features railings as balustrades, with balconies and terraces following the southern slope of the hillside location in Pötzleinsdorf. From the flat roof, visitors can enjoy a 360-degree panoramic view.
The villa serves as an ode to light, incorporating large, sometimes floor-to-ceiling windows that can be completely retracted into the walls. Balconies and terraces open the house toward the south, while railings and portholes evoke the image of a streamlined ship with a lookout on the flat roof. The rigorously stepped building structure nestles into the hillside, with the garden below (designed by Albert Esch, a highly sought-after landscape architect of the time) continuing these stepped levels.
For four happy years, the Jewish doctor couple Anna and Philipp Rezek lived with their daughters in their airy home, following Josef Frank's maxim "Use everything!" by bringing furniture and curtains from their apartment in Anna's large family house in Vienna's 1st district. A style magazine celebrated their villa with its sophisticated built-ins as a place of cheerfulness, life-affirming modernity, and loving spatial culture. The living room alone measured 70 square meters and housed a Bechstein grand piano for house concerts.
The organized kitchen featured sensationally new appliances for the time – an Elin electric stove and an Electrolux refrigerator, representing futuristic luxury in an era when only a tiny percentage of Viennese households cooked with electricity. The villa also included a winter garden, library with Rio rosewood built-ins, and a hall that served as a waiting room for the doctor couple's patients, furnished with cherry wood seating, display cases, and bookshelves.
The family's story took a tragic turn in 1938 when they fled to the United States to escape Nazi persecution. Hans Glas later emigrated alone to India after his wife and father committed suicide out of fear. The house was "Aryanized" and confiscated, then restituted to the Rezek family in the 1950s (along with their revoked doctoral titles) and immediately sold. The villa subsequently changed hands multiple times, with the final owners gutting the interior, destroying built-ins, floors, and ceilings, leaving what Eisenköck described as a skeletal condition by 2019.
The villa's salvation came when a foundation, involving Eisenköck's father Hermann Eisenköck (also an architect), purchased the damaged shell. This marked the beginning of an extraordinary six-year restoration process that the Federal Monuments Office recognized for its exceptional persistence. Max Eisenköck describes himself as a detail-loving detective and time traveler who meticulously evaluated historical documents and photographs while establishing contact with the Rezeks' grandchildren in the United States.
The restoration process required extensive research and specialized craftsmanship. A Carinthian textile company, Seidra, specially calibrated their looms to weave new curtains according to original patterns. Historical photos, reports, and conversations with descendants of the doctor couple who fled to the United States helped achieve perfect reconstruction of the entrance area. The team searched archives, online marketplaces, and antique shops for original parts, with their persistence paying off thanks to the support of skilled craftsmen and restorers.
A Viennese backyard carpentry shop reconstructed the Nikolaus patent sliding windows that disappear into the parapets, similar to those used in avant-garde tuberculosis sanatoriums of the era. A specialized hardware company crafted door handles, rosettes, and window hardware from German silver, including coat hooks and the banister knob. Even the high-tech 1933 Elin electric stove was painstakingly located – Eisenköck found the same model in a Styrian holiday home and had it restored, representing the ultra-modern technology of an era when only one in a hundred households had an electric stove.
Art historian Caroline Wohlgemuth, who researched the history of Hans Glas, the displaced family, and the restitution process, accompanied this puzzle-like restoration and emphasized its emotional significance. "This house doesn't just save architecture, but also preserves the memory of Jewish contributions to interwar modernism," she noted. Wohlgemuth and Eisenköck published a book in November titled "Das Glas Haus – Wien 1933. Vertriebene Visionen" (The Glass House – Vienna 1933. Displaced Visions) featuring historical and contemporary photographs documenting the villa's journey from ruin to restored architectural masterpiece.
Today, the villa showcases meticulously restored details throughout its rooms. The younger daughter's room features custom green furniture and red-lacquered Thonet bentwood chairs, with original linoleum remnants helping determine the color of new flooring. The first-floor dressing room displays lemon-yellow built-ins, with pendant lighting crafted by Vienna's Kalmar manufacturing company, the same firm that created the original fixtures. The winter garden now houses the same types of plants that once thrived there – rubber trees, monstera, staghorn ferns, and euphorbia – researched and supplied by Viennese houseplant specialist Calienna.
The villa now functions as a museum villa, offering guided tours twice monthly that can be booked through villarezek.at. The restoration represents not only the preservation of significant modernist architecture but also serves as a memorial to the displaced Jewish family and architect whose visionary ideas remain remarkably relevant today. The project demonstrates how meticulous research, extraordinary persistence, and skilled craftsmanship can bring architectural history back to life while honoring the memory of those whose lives were disrupted by historical tragedy.
