Modern
House 2
by Clare
Melhuish, Editor
Phaidon Press, New York, NY, 2004
240 pp., illus. 300 color and 140 b/w.
Paper, $29.95
ISBN: 0-71484-381-4.
Reviewed by Maria Buteler
Department of Art, University of Northern
Iowa, Cedar Falls Iowa 50614-0362 USA
mariab@uni.edu
As both an architect and a publication
designer, I am especially interested in
books that enrich my knowledge of both
disciplines while also keeping me informed
of the latest innovations. Modern House
2 is a good example of this. Beginning
with the editor’s introduction, this
book surveys the changes in the architectural
concept of "house" from early
Modernism to the present day in the wake
of surprising approaches proposed by Mies
van der Rohe, Le Corbusier, and other
pioneering designers. Inherited by today’s
architects, these same ideas are still
very apparent in Postmodernism, in architectural
attitudes toward construction, spatial
organization, and identity. The author
discusses how social and cultural contexts
are inevitably reflected in architectural
planning, and especially in residential
design, since the house is the first,
most critical setting in which the individual
grows. Featured in the book are about
30 houses designed by leading architects
from throughout the world, among them
Rem Koolhaas, Herzog and de Meuron, Foster
& Partners, MVRDV Architects, and
so on. Represented are a rich variety
of genres, with the purpose of viewing
the spectrum of styles in contemporary
house design. Although some of the houses
are located in widely separate parts of
the world and at first appear very different,
they all have things in common that make
them contemporary. Sometimes these are
attributable to the handling of the interior
space, the materials used, environmental
concerns, or the building’s interaction
with an adjacent setting, whether urban
or natural.
The contents of the book are grouped into
five sections: Environmental Awareness
(on the primacy of environmental issues
in architectural design); Changing
Patterns of Living (on greater flexibility
in domestic building design, in light
of the advances in technology and communications);
Urban Interaction (on the influence
of architects on urban life by their design
of private houses in existing suburban
areas); Rural Retreat (on how houses
located outside of urban areas increasingly
regarded as permanent living quarters);
and Concept House of the Future
(on prototypes of houses that address
impending future concerns). Throughout
the book, I was repeatedly pleased by
the way in which each of the 30 projects
are analyzed. The discussions are clear,
exact and concise, with supplementary
comments by the architects themselves.
As a result, the reader is genuinely able
to know each building and to understand
how it works. This is also partly due
to the vividness of the book’s photographs,
in which striking points of view provide
a sense of how it feels to be physically
present in each of the structures.
This book is a great opportunity to acquaint
oneself with an inspirational collection
of contemporary houses designed by gifted
architects. The range of the projects——situated
in varying contexts and designed with
different emphases——gives the
reader an understanding of the many, complex
factors that influence today's architectural
design. Architects and designers will
especially enjoy this volume, but others
will find it of interest as well.
(Reprinted by permission from Ballast
Quarterly Review, Volume 21 Number
1, Autumn 2005.)
