The Landauers, a recently married couple, commission German architect Rainer von Abt to build a modern house in Brno (Czechoslovakia).

The Landauer House, based on the Villa Tugendhat, becomes a minimalist masterpiece, with a transparent glass room as its center.

As the Landauers struggle abroad, their home passes through several new owners, with each new inhabitant falling under the spell of the glass room.

While clearly a fiction, the book does mix fictive characters with some real historical figures, among them Czech composer Vítězslava Kaprálová.

[5] It was named a best book of 2009 by The Economist, The Daily Telegraph, Financial Times, London Evening Standard, The Observer, and Slate.com.