Villa Müller after the 2026 reopening: what is new

Closed for a year and a half

The villa closed to visitors in February 2025. Before the works, the museum explained that the rooftop terrace would undergo a thorough reconstruction after twenty-five years, under the watchful eye of the National Heritage Institute. Restoration of a protected house is slow by design: every repair is checked against what was there in 1930, and original materials are conserved wherever they can be.

The museum reopened the house on 1 October 2026. Its own summary is that the villa had been closed for more than a year and a half for reconstruction, and that the work revolved primarily around the roof terrace, with restoration inside as well.

The roof terrace

The terrace at the top of the house was the heart of the project. It is now open to visitors again whenever the weather allows. That condition matters: in rain, ice or high wind the guide may keep the group inside, so treat the terrace as a bonus rather than a promise.

When it is open, the terrace is where the house's position makes sense. The plot was chosen for its views over the Vltava valley, and the museum notes that its highest point is higher than Prague Castle. A large opening in the terrace wall frames the view like a window in a room without a roof.

In the darker months, the 10:30 English tour reaches the terrace in full daylight. The 15:00 tour ends after four o'clock, when winter light is fading.

Work inside the house

The interior work was quieter but careful. In the bedroom, the original paper wallpaper has been restored. Replicas have been made of the original paper lamps. Paintwork has been refreshed, and the wooden floors and metal elements throughout the house have been treated.

None of this is meant to be obvious. The aim, as in the first restoration of 1998 to 2000, is a house that looks as it did when the Müllers moved in, not a house that looks renovated. Look closely at the bedroom wallpaper and the lamps, and you are seeing the newest work in the villa.

Rooms on the route for the first time

The most visible change is the route itself. The museum says the new tour takes you through the entire house, from the service and technical areas in the basement up to the highest floors. Several rooms are open to visitors for the first time ever.

These are the parlour, the guest room and the servants' quarters. The servants' quarters include the maid's room, a bathroom, and a toilet with a separate washroom. Together they change how the house reads. Before, the tour showed the Müllers' world of marble and mahogany; now it also shows the guests who stayed and the staff who kept the house running.

In good weather the tour also takes in the exterior of the villa and its garden, designed alongside the house by Camillo Schneider, Karl Förster and Hermann Mattern.

Loans that have come home

Some of the furniture you see has returned after many years away. The museum says part of the freestanding furniture belongs to the villa's original inventory and is back in its original place after a long loan.

Other furniture, paintings and objects have been lent to the house by the Museum of Decorative Arts in Prague, the National Gallery Prague and the Gallery of West Bohemia in Pilsen. Pilsen is fitting: it was the Müllers' home city before they came to Prague, and the city where many of Loos's Czech clients lived.

Details the museum asks you to notice

The museum picks out the materials first: Cipollino marble, mahogany and lemonwood veneer. The marble is the green and grey stone of the living hall. The mahogany is in the dark polished woodwork. The lemonwood, paler and warmer, is a veneer.

Then there is the door. On the exterior door, the knob on the outside is black and the one on the inside is white. It is a small thing, and exactly the kind of decision that runs through the whole house: nothing is accidental, and the plainest surface hides a thought.

The rules at the gate

The museum's rules are few and sensible, and they are easier to follow if you know them before you arrive. Your tour begins at its scheduled time at the gate. Everyone needs a valid ticket, including visitors who are entitled to free entry. Without a ticket for the tour, entry is not possible.

Hand luggage goes into the cloakroom; the museum asks this so you feel at home in the house, and so that bags do not knock against walls and furniture in small rooms. The original wooden floors need protecting from very high heels. As the museum puts it, very high heels were rarely worn in the 1930s, and visitors who arrive in them are asked to change their footwear.

Photography is permitted and welcome, without flash and without tripods. The house has limited toilets, and the guides ask everyone to follow their instructions throughout the visit.

None of these rules is unusual for a historic house, but together they shape the visit. Travel light, wear flat shoes you can climb in, use the facilities before you come up the hill, and keep your phone handy for photographs. Then you can give the rooms your full attention.

English or Czech: choosing your tour

Every opening day has six standard tours, at 9:00, 10:30, 12:00, 13:30, 15:00 and 16:30. Two of them, at 10:30 and 15:00, are guided in English; the other four are in Czech. The route, the rooms and the rules are the same in both languages.

If you do not speak Czech, the English tours are the ones to book, and they are also the ones that fill first, because there are only sixteen English places a day. If you cannot find an English place on your date, a Czech tour still lets you see every room and take photographs, but the commentary will be in Czech. Many visitors prefer to wait for an English place, which is what our waiting list is for.

If you visited before 2025

Returning visitors will find the core of the house as it was: the marble living hall, the dining room, the boudoir and library, the bedrooms and the children's room, all furnished as in 1930. What has changed is the reach of the tour and the finish of some rooms.

Expect to start lower, in the service and technical rooms, and to finish higher, on the repaired terrace when the weather allows. Expect the parlour and the guest room, which you will not have seen, and the servants' quarters. Look again at the bedroom, where the restored wallpaper and the new replicas of the paper lamps are the most recent work in the house, and at furniture that has come back to the villa after years on loan.

Accessibility after the works

The works did not change the basic shape of the house, and Villa Müller is still not wheelchair accessible. The museum says so plainly on its visitor page and in its answers to visitors' questions.

The reason is the Raumplan itself: the rooms sit at different levels joined by short flights of steps, and the tour now climbs even further, from the basement to the roof terrace. If you have limited mobility, think about the full route before you book, and write to us if you would like us to describe it in more detail.

Children and families

Children up to the age of 15 enter free when accompanied by an adult. They still need a ticket, and each one takes one of the eight places on the tour. From 15, young visitors take the student fare.

The museum now also offers special tours for parents with children, alongside the standard tours, as well as curator-led tours on themes such as the Raumplan and the link between fashion and architecture in Loos's work. We book the standard guided tour, in English or Czech.

Booking after the reopening

Demand since the reopening has been strong. Tours take eight people at most, only the 10:30 and 15:00 tours are in English, and the museum releases tickets in batches. At the time of writing, tours are on sale until 20 December 2026, and many dates before then are already full.

Book as soon as your Prague dates are fixed. If your date is sold out or not yet on sale, leave it with us without paying: we watch for new releases and returned places, and send you a payment link when we can book your tour.

When you book with us, choose your fare for each adult, student or senior, pick the date and one of the six start times, and tell us the ages of any children under 15 so we can add their free tickets. We reserve the tour on the museum's official system and email you the e-ticket to show at the gate. If the museum cancels your tour, you are refunded in full.

How long to allow

The standard tour lasts about 75 minutes. Allow around an hour and a half in all, so you can arrive at the gate a few minutes early, leave your bag in the cloakroom, take the tour and collect your things afterwards.

If you want to see the outside of the house properly, or walk the streets of Ořechovka and old Střešovice below it, add another half hour to an hour. Those streets are quiet and residential, and they show you the neighbourhood the Müllers chose for their house.