The principles that great architects declared in their theoretical works can be easily determined from their own houses: it was private properties that served as a testing ground for their experiments and innovations. The places where famous architects lived, who influenced modern architecture, are just as fascinating to look at as it is to be interested in the details of their private lives - with the only difference that these buildings, for the most part, are already open to the public and provide an opportunity to personally see the scale of which their creators thought.
Victor's house
Horta
Founder of Art Nouveau Victor Horta, (1861–1947) built this house for himself and lived here, in the Brussels municipality of Saint-Gilles, from 1901 to 1919. The building was built under his supervision for three years. Even after construction was completed, Orta continued to make changes to the appearance of the house; in 1906, a garden was added to the house. Horta rented the building after his divorce but eventually became the owner and permanent resident. The architect treated it as a kind of creative laboratory in which new techniques could be honed. The house consists of two buildings communicating from the inside, each with its own unique personality. The staircase, decorated with stained glass, represents the “spine” of the entire structure. Horta divided the spaces precisely, separating the workshop and making the presence of the servants invisible.
At the end of the 19th century, the Art Nouveau movement emerged as a resistance to prevailing standards, dictated by classical traditions. The architecture imitated early Greek and Roman models, which adhered to the rules of precise geometry and perfect symmetry. Horta and the pioneers of Art Nouveau developed a new aesthetic that freed the imagination by imitating the subtle, fluid, and sinuous movements of nature. But it was not just an aesthetic approach, but one that advocated the integration of art and design into everyday life to make beautiful things accessible and accessible to everyone.
For supporters of the movement, any object, even the most ordinary and utilitarian, can be turned into a work of art. Horta demonstrated this by turning a space heater in his home into a decorative column. The stylistic revolution represented by this building is characterized by the whimsical design of the façade, the new open floor plan, and the masterful art of diffused light. The original interior decoration, which Horta painstakingly created in accordance with his ideals of beauty, can still be seen today: mosaics, stained glass, furniture and wall paintings. Even the door handles and window frames have been preserved. The museum's interiors display tableware and objects created by Horta and his contemporaries, as well as scale models, casts, and plans that explain the architect's work. The building is included in the UNESCO World Heritage List.
• Maison & Atelier Horta, Brussels, 23-25 Rue Américaine.
Manor
Frank Lloyd Wright
One of the most famous and dramatic places associated with Frank Lloyd Wright (1867–1959) is his family estate Taliesin. The word Taliesin means "shining forehead". The name symbolized Wright's intention to create a house that would not be on the hill, but as if in front of it: Taliesin was built below the top of the hill, not on its top.
Wright inherited the land from his mother: he built a house-workshop on this land for many years. In this estate, which grew over the years, Wright housed not only his architectural office but, since 1932, a private architectural university (which still teaches architecture and issues diplomas).
When constructing the house, Wright used local materials to emphasize the community with the landscape. Yellow limestone from the quarry was combined with river sand to build the walls of Taliesin. The plaster for the interior walls was mixed with sienna, providing a golden hue to reflect the pastoral setting. The architect called his house “low, wide, and cozy.” The Taliesin features many of Wright's signature features: it has cantilevered roofs, expansive windows, and an open floor plan.
The house survived a terrible fire twice, which completely destroyed it - in 1914 and in 1925 - immediately after the house was rebuilt after the first fire. However, Wright did not give up - and since 1928 he again erected several buildings. Wright lived by constantly changing the house with the help of students, whom he called “the fingers of his hand.” After Wright's death in 1959, ownership of Taliesin passed to the foundation that Wright created in 1940 to preserve his legacy. Today it is the operating Frank Lloyd Wright School of Architecture, where classes are conducted from May to October.
• Taliesin, USA, Wisconsin, Spring Green, County Road, 5481
The Glass House by Philip Johnson
Philip Johnson (1906–2005), who introduced the International Style to America, reaffirmed the principles of modernism with his own first building, the Glass House. Built-in 1949, the architect insisted that his design was based on Mies van der Rohe's early designs for the Farnsworth House and at least a dozen other historical examples he mentioned in interviews. He also emphasized that the house is “not a controlled environment” and is far from ideal comfort (obviously because there is no air conditioning). Regardless of Johnson's opinion, the house became a unique example of fusion with its surroundings.
Inside this unique place, which is a historical site of national heritage, all volumes are brought to the absolute level. Here there is a feeling of clarity of purity, which architecture is designed to emphasize and not disrupt.
The house plan is divided into two parts: a guest wing and a fully glazed living pavilion. To the observer, the house appears as an undifferentiated rectangular frame of glass, outlined by four steel corners and full-length doors at the center of each of the four sides.
The glazing in the house is not doubled, and from the point of view of heat, light and acoustics this solution seems almost extreme. A brick cylinder rises from the floor and passes through the flat roof slab; it conceals a bathroom, and to the side of the main living area there is a working fireplace, which, however, serves more of a decorative function, since it distributes heat only to a small area.
The heating of the house is provided by electric elements in the slabs on the floor and roof.
The amount of furniture has been reduced to a strict minimum. The most amazing feature of this house is how it literally merges with nature. It is equipped with curtains that hide the bright sunlight and give the room intimacy.
For the public, the house opened its doors in 2007.
• Glass House, USA, Connecticut, New Canaan, Ponus Ridge Road, 798–856
Casa das Canoas, home of Oscar Niemeyer Oscar Niemeyer (1907–2012) is considered the most important Brazilian architect, as well as a major figure in the development of modern architecture. A poet of the fluid plasticity of concrete and a former colleague of Le Corbusier, he designed his buildings so that the curved lines of his architecture seemed to be born in nature and complement it.
Niemeyer designed his own family home in 1951, at the beginning of his creative career: since then, Casa das Canoas has been considered one of the most significant examples of lyrical modernism in Brazil. Niemeyer lived here until 1965 when he had to leave Brazil due to the military dictatorship. Here he explored techniques that he successfully implemented in other projects, later and on a larger scale. Using “tropical eroticism” as a building language, Niemeyer deconstructed the elements of functionalist architecture: this structure, with a curved flat roof supported by light steel columns and transparent glass walls, seems to “dissolve” the house in the tropical jungle. The lowest level faces the opposite side of the hill with significantly smaller windows. The private part is “hidden” here: bedrooms, bathrooms, and an office-library. While upstairs, behind transparent glass, there is a kitchen and living room.
Niemeyer wrote: “...straight lines and angles divide and divide space, and I have always loved curves, which are the essence of the nature that surrounds us. Only concrete allows me to control curves of such a wide scope... Concrete provides a continuous modulation of space.” The fact of concrete's flexural strength was established quite quickly, but only many years later did architects begin to use this property of the brutal material.
• Casa das Canoas, Brazil, Rio de Janeiro, Estrada das Canoas, 1246
"Cabanon" by Le Corbusier
Le Corbusier, (1887–1965), the most consistent architect in the world, did not diverge from words: he not only developed new standards of housing, but he himself lived in the way he dreamed that most people would live. In his “shelter” - the summer house "Kabanon" (cabanon means "hut" in French) he clearly applied the principles of his Modulor system.
This house on the seashore has only one room measuring 3.66x3.66 m and 2.26 m high. The hut is located on a cliff: the sea splashes twelve meters below. Here Corbusier invented aerators - now elements of a “glass curtain wall”. Also here, the architect invented and applied solar control devices that provide clean, fresh air; automatic natural air exchange during the day and night and complete protection against mosquitoes and midges.
Twelve meters from the house, on another rock, there is another small building 2x4 m. Corbusier worked in one house and rested in the other. The great architect, with the help of these huts, tried to prove how “architecture and urban planning” should merge: optimal placement, convenient communication, delightful views and natural conditions, fresh air, and temperature regulation. The construction of such structures was prohibited in France since its dimensions did not comply with current standards.
It all started with the fact that not far from the Eileen Gray villa, where Le Corbusier loved to relax, in 1949, local plumber Thomas Rebutato opened the Starfish restaurant, where the architect regularly dined. In 1952, with the permission of Rebutato Corbusier, a building was added to the restaurant consisting of a living room, a corridor, a bathroom and a shower. The "hut" is connected by a door to the "Starfish", which becomes the "dining room" for Corbusier and his wife Yvonne. Le Corbusier interpreted Cabanon as a compact polyvalent space that serves simultaneously as a bedroom, study, and living room.
Le Corbusier also painted two decorative panels: a large one covering the entire wall of the corridor, masking the door connecting the “Hut” and “Starfish”, and a small one near the window. In a letter to photographer Brassai, Le Corbusier wrote: “I feel so good in my hut that, without a doubt, I will end my days here.” These words became prophetic; in 1966, while swimming in the sea under the “Hut,” Le Corbusier suffered a heart attack and died. Currently, the building belongs to the Le Corbusier Foundation and is used as a museum.
• Cabanon, France, Roquebrune-Cap-Martin.
Alvar Aalto's summer house
This experimental house is located on the western shore of Lake Päijänne, on the Finnish island of Muuratsalo: from here the tower of the town hall built by Alvar Aalto is clearly visible
(Alvar Aalto, 1898–1976). Elissa and Alvar found suitable land for their family home in 1927, when Säjätsalo Town Hall was under construction.
The area of the rocky area is 53,650 sq.m. There are boulders and stones covered with moss, among which blueberries and lingonberries grow. The trees in this area are typical of Finnish mixed forests: birch and pine trees predominate. In the 1950s, the island could only be reached by boat - there was no bridge. On the territory of this “Experimental House,” as Aalto called it, there is the house itself, a forest shed, a smokehouse, a bathhouse and a boat station called Nemo propheta in patria (this is how the architect wanted to emphasize the connection of his work with his homeland).
The main house consists of a main building (1952) and an additional wing (1953).
The L-shaped main building and walls surround a courtyard that opens to the south and west. In the courtyard, the facade of the house changes from plastered walls painted white to red brick: the architect explored the decorative possibilities of facing bricks, laying them in 50 different ways. Aalto did not stop there: he planned to do without a foundation, use free-form bricks and other innovations, but only one plan was implemented: the guest house really does not have a foundation.
• Experimental House, Finland, Lake Päijänne, Muuratsalo island
Villa Albert Frey
The residence that architect Albert Frey (1903–1998) built for himself above a rocky slope in Palm Springs has recently been completely restored. The owner, who bought the house in the 1970s, has spent the last two years working on renovations. Thus, the villa is as close as possible to the original design.
This building is considered the apogee of Frey's architectural practice. An architect with European roots, who spent his life striving to redefine the concept of the urban landscape, founded a new design movement in Palm Spring: “desert modernism.” His designs were based on the integration of buildings into the landscape. He drew inspiration from colors and textures and seamlessly integrated the architecture into the rocky topography. His villas were practical and conducive to relaxation; their exteriors were designed with special care, and their interiors were extremely comfortable. Now it is difficult to imagine that the founding father of “hot” Californian modernism was born in the snowy mountains of Switzerland: however, Frey always insisted on the close relationship between theoretical architecture and practice.
The innovative Albert Frey House II is a true embodiment of desert modernism and the ingenuity of its author. This house, created in 1964 on an area of 74 sq.m., has a long, low and linear shape: this was necessary to create a glass and steel structure combined with natural stone to better integrate into the landscape of Mount San Jacinto. The plans for the house were considered far-fetched—regulators at Palm Springs City Hall called them “crazy,” but granted Frey permission to create his masterpiece.
Huge windows allow light to flow freely into the home and offer breathtaking views of the skyline. The interior colors are inspired by the exterior: the ceilings are painted sky blue and the yellow shade of the Encelia flower, typical of the area, is used for the curtains. Frey himself said about the house: “What I like most here is the contrast between natural stone and high-tech materials.” Essentially he took an uninhabitable area and made it into an outstanding residence through architecture. Frey House II is also considered the first house to be designed to have minimal environmental impact.
• Albert Frey House II, USA, California, Palm Springs, West Palisades Drive, 686
House for Bath Venturi,
Robert Venturi
A house-manifest, in which everything is arranged contrary to the generally accepted architectural norm. Located in Chestnut Hill, Pennsylvania, on a flat, tree-lined lot, Robert Venturi (1925–2018) designed and built the house for his mother between 1962 and 1964, and then lived there himself. It was in this project that he embodied all his beliefs, as well as the complexity and contradiction associated with their acquisition (he later also wrote the book “Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture”).
The tiny five-room mansion, barely nine meters in height, turned out to be a real bone of contention in the history of architecture of the last century, immediately erasing all the traditions of the great modernists - Mies van der Rohe, Le Corbusier and their followers. And architectural historian Vincent Scully called it “the largest small building of the second half of the twentieth century.”
Venturi had six fully developed versions of the house. The final version became known as the first example of postmodern architecture. Most critics generally consider consistency in architecture to be an important aspect of design. However, in the house of Vanna Venturi, Robert Venturi took the road less traveled and tested complexity and contradiction in architecture, rebelling against the modernist norm. Almost complete symmetry in plan, a gable roof instead of a flat one, an intricate heap of volumes, a free interpretation of classical motifs (these principles would later be embodied in the architecture of the 1980s).
•Vanna Venturi House, USA, Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Millman Street, 8330
Jorn Utson's house
Not a drop of concrete, no interior decoration. Bare stonework, sun and a monumental embodiment of harmonious proportions. Minimalism. Away from the beaten path and tourist bustle of Mallorca, Danish architect Jørn Utzon (1918–2008) built a summer home for himself and his family and named it after his wife Lys. Built in the 1970s, the site is now considered a symbol of 20th-century architecture and is open to the public, having completed renovations in 2011.
The originality of Can Lis lies in the reinterpretation of traditional Mallorcan building methods and the use of local building materials. Sturdy walls made from dusty pink stone, quarried in the nearby town of Santanyi, protect the house from the street. The building is located next to an escarpment on a quiet section of the coastline.
All the walls of the house are very strong and rather like a fortress, and the windows are deeply recessed; Utson wanted the family to feel protected inside the house. The rooms are arranged in a series of pavilions connected by transitional courtyards and steps arranged in a linear structure to allow for ocean views. The buildings have different functions: there is a cooking area, a living room and bedrooms. It was important for the architect to separate private and public space.
• Can Lis, Spain, Mallorca, Porto Petro, Carrer de Sa Mitha Yuna, 77
Frank Gehry's house
Deconstructivist architecture is believed to have started with this Frank Gehry house. The home that Frank Gehry (b. 2/28/1929) created for himself and his wife Bertha in 1978 in downtown Santa Monica, and which he renovated in the early 1990s, helped give him a reputation as one of the most notable architects and masters of postmodernism.
Before purchasing, Gehry compiled a list of the pros and cons of his property. Positives included: green roofing, pink asbestos shingles, plywood interior walls, corner lot location, a row of tall Lebanese cedar trees along the north line of the building, and a giant milkweed cactus in the backyard. He noted only one drawback: “The block is filled with apartments.”
This glass, plywood, corrugated metal structure, which soon appeared in the center of the old quarter, was hailed as a design icon immediately after its construction. And the architect himself spent several happy decades in this house. Gehry and his wife raised two sons there, and the family had to deal with the many tourists and architecture students who came to gaze at this magnificent building, much to the displeasure of respectable neighbors.
Of course, Gehry's work has evolved significantly since his Santa Monica home, which predates the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao and the Fondation Louis Vuitton building in Paris. This house was a kind of design laboratory for the early part of his career, when the architect did not have much money: Gehry wanted the new house to reflect his current formal interests
• USA, California, Santa Monica, 22nd street, 1002
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