ZIKMUND VILLA

For the unveiling of Aereo’s soul, we could not have wished for a more fitting place. During our January discussions with our long-time photographer Hana Knížová about the traditional series of images that accompanies every Pigmentarium fragrance, we searched for a setting that would embody the perfume’s balanced, contemplative and intentionally solitary character. A place whose authentic energy could reach the viewer through the photograph itself. In our minds, we saw a library, a spacious study, thoughtfully collected personal objects, maps, paintings, and large windows opening onto a garden that offers both tranquillity and a sense of distance from the outside world.

Then we realised such a place already existed. And that, even several years after the passing of its creator, it remains alive with a singular sense of magic. At the end of February, the Zlín home of writer and truly legendary traveller Miroslav Zikmund opened its doors to us. From sunrise to sunset, without any staging or intervention, we captured the images we had imagined from the very beginning. They have since become an inseparable backdrop to the story of Aereo, whose first chapter has already been revealed, while the next awaits the arrival of autumn. So what is it that you are actually looking at?

A steep south-facing hillside overlooking Zlín, crowned by a private woodland garden. Nearly century-old trees separate the house from a collection of elegant, light-filled villas that form one of the city’s characteristic neighbourhoods from the era of Tomáš Baťa. The villa was built in 1933 for the family of Januštík, the district’s first governor and government councillor. For a brief chapter of its history, it belonged to Elmar Klos, the first Czech recipient of an Academy Award. The garden’s most monumental trees date back to this very period. Klos himself never lived in the house and sold it in 1953 to another undisputed icon of his time, the traveller Miroslav Zikmund. Architect Zdeněk Plesník later transformed the villa into the form in which the celebrated author of travelogues would spend nearly seventy years of his life, and which has been preserved to this day. Zikmund’s work, ideals, the energy of countless encounters held within these walls, and the remarkable artefacts gathered during journeys around the world that seem almost unimaginable today — including those undertaken in the legendary Tatra 87 — can still be felt everywhere. Thanks to the patron and prominent Zlín figure Čestmír Vančura, the house, its garden, and its complete furnishings, down to several authentic Hašlerky candies left on a bedside table, have become a unique cultural institution of the city. Under the care of the Miroslav Zikmund Foundation, it continues to live on. To portray Aereo against a backdrop of books, rare antique maps, and even the villa’s expansive bathroom and gymnasium was a dream come true for us. And another dream lies in the knowledge that a place as authentic as Miroslav Zikmund’s villa can continue to inspire and shape the way future generations see the world.

We arrived for the shoot in the nature-conscious Toyota C-HR, a car that felt perfectly at home alongside the villa and its surroundings.

text: David Ševčík
photo: Hana Knížová, David Ševčík
This article includes materials from the publication Architect Zdeněk Plesník – The Villa of Miroslav Zikmund by Petr Všetečka and Rostislav Švácha.