Architecture
Iconic Homes That Showcase Modern Architecture
The Modern movement produced revolutionary homes that have stood the test of time. Here are some of its signature projects explained
On some days it seems that Modern architecture has 10 times as many detractors as proponents, even though the movement has influenced a great deal of residential architecture – from open floor plans to means of construction. Some of the dislike for Modernism can be attributed to the way it broke with the classical tradition, even though some histories trace Modern architecture from 19th-century Neoclassicism and the Industrial Revolution to 20th-century manufacturing. Many views of Modern architecture are oversimplified, and even the significant houses of the early and mid-20th centuries are a varied bunch that deserve close examination.
This story will take in-depth looks at 12 icons of Modern residential architecture, presenting their architecture and the stories behind them. The houses, outlined here, span from 1908 to 1951, through two World Wars and the Great Depression. As will be seen, these and other events contributed to the acceptance and influence of Modern architecture.
This story will take in-depth looks at 12 icons of Modern residential architecture, presenting their architecture and the stories behind them. The houses, outlined here, span from 1908 to 1951, through two World Wars and the Great Depression. As will be seen, these and other events contributed to the acceptance and influence of Modern architecture.
Frederick C. Robie House
Year built: 1909
Architect: Frank Lloyd Wright
Location: Chicago
Must know: One aspect of Frank Lloyd Wright’s genius was the need to constantly reinvent himself and his architecture, perfecting a type of design and then moving on to something else. The Robie House can be seen as the apotheosis of his Prairie style, which he started to develop in the early 1890s and abandoned in favor of his democratic, Usonian designs. The low-slung house perfectly embodies the horizontal relationship of house to landscape of Wright’s organic architecture.
Read more about the Robie House
Year built: 1909
Architect: Frank Lloyd Wright
Location: Chicago
Must know: One aspect of Frank Lloyd Wright’s genius was the need to constantly reinvent himself and his architecture, perfecting a type of design and then moving on to something else. The Robie House can be seen as the apotheosis of his Prairie style, which he started to develop in the early 1890s and abandoned in favor of his democratic, Usonian designs. The low-slung house perfectly embodies the horizontal relationship of house to landscape of Wright’s organic architecture.
Read more about the Robie House
Schröder House
Year built: 1924
Architect: Gerrit Rietveld
Location: Utrecht, Netherlands
Must know: At first glance Gerrit Rietveld’s design for Schröder House is like a painting come to life. Traditional ideas of construction and enclosure, outside and inside, don’t appear; in their place are lines, planes and splashes of colour. These traits also apply to furniture that Rietveld designed, pointing to the synthesis that he and his Dutch contemporaries realised through the short-lived De Stijl (the style) movement.
Read more about the Schröder House
Year built: 1924
Architect: Gerrit Rietveld
Location: Utrecht, Netherlands
Must know: At first glance Gerrit Rietveld’s design for Schröder House is like a painting come to life. Traditional ideas of construction and enclosure, outside and inside, don’t appear; in their place are lines, planes and splashes of colour. These traits also apply to furniture that Rietveld designed, pointing to the synthesis that he and his Dutch contemporaries realised through the short-lived De Stijl (the style) movement.
Read more about the Schröder House
Lovell Beach House
Year built: 1926
Architect: Rudolph M. Schindler
Location: Newport Beach, California
Must know: In this third residence that R.M. Schindler designed for Philip Lovell (a lover of modern architecture if there ever was one, for he also commissioned Richard Neutra to design a house), he raised the house on five sculptural columns to gain ocean views over neighbouring buildings. The bravado structure also responds to seismic considerations and survived an earthquake five years after completion, one that destroyed a nearby school. Schindler worked for Frank Lloyd Wright previously, and that influence can be found in some details, but with this house the architect crafted his own personal Modern style.
Read more about the Lovell Beach House
Year built: 1926
Architect: Rudolph M. Schindler
Location: Newport Beach, California
Must know: In this third residence that R.M. Schindler designed for Philip Lovell (a lover of modern architecture if there ever was one, for he also commissioned Richard Neutra to design a house), he raised the house on five sculptural columns to gain ocean views over neighbouring buildings. The bravado structure also responds to seismic considerations and survived an earthquake five years after completion, one that destroyed a nearby school. Schindler worked for Frank Lloyd Wright previously, and that influence can be found in some details, but with this house the architect crafted his own personal Modern style.
Read more about the Lovell Beach House
Villa Savoye
Year built: 1931
Architect: Le Corbusier
Location: Poissy, France
Must know: This weekend house near Paris for Pierre and Emilie Savoye has become one of Modern architecture’s key icons, residential or otherwise. It perfectly encapsulates Le Corbusier’s five points that he developed in the 1920s: raising the building on pilotis (slender columns), a free facade that was independent of the structural system, ribbon windows based on a similar logic, an open floor plan, and a roof garden that regained the ground lost through the building’s occupation of the landscape.
Read more about the Villa Savoye house
Year built: 1931
Architect: Le Corbusier
Location: Poissy, France
Must know: This weekend house near Paris for Pierre and Emilie Savoye has become one of Modern architecture’s key icons, residential or otherwise. It perfectly encapsulates Le Corbusier’s five points that he developed in the 1920s: raising the building on pilotis (slender columns), a free facade that was independent of the structural system, ribbon windows based on a similar logic, an open floor plan, and a roof garden that regained the ground lost through the building’s occupation of the landscape.
Read more about the Villa Savoye house
Rose Seidler House
Year built: 1950
Architect: Harry Seidler
Location: Sydney, New South Wales
Must know: A young architect named Harry Seidler, who had trained at Harvard University under Marcel Breuer, was a leading proponent of Mid-century Australian home design. In 1950 he built a Modernist home in Sydney’s Wahroonga bushland that adhered to these principles. The house appeared to float, with spindly legs and a side ramp for support.
Using Breuer’s binuclear layout, he designed one arm of the house to contain the living areas and the other arm to contain the private areas. A playroom connects the two internally and a courtyard connects them externally. With few internal walls and floor-to-ceiling glass, Seidler created a sense of openness that is now essential to contemporary living.
Year built: 1950
Architect: Harry Seidler
Location: Sydney, New South Wales
Must know: A young architect named Harry Seidler, who had trained at Harvard University under Marcel Breuer, was a leading proponent of Mid-century Australian home design. In 1950 he built a Modernist home in Sydney’s Wahroonga bushland that adhered to these principles. The house appeared to float, with spindly legs and a side ramp for support.
Using Breuer’s binuclear layout, he designed one arm of the house to contain the living areas and the other arm to contain the private areas. A playroom connects the two internally and a courtyard connects them externally. With few internal walls and floor-to-ceiling glass, Seidler created a sense of openness that is now essential to contemporary living.
Gropius House
Year built: 1937
Architect: Walter Gropius
Location: Lincoln, Massachusetts
Must know: Walter Gropius, who had founded the influential Bauhaus School in Germany, emigrated to the United States in 1937. He taught at the Harvard Graduate School of Design in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and designed this house for his family in nearby Lincoln. Its ribbon windows and white surfaces express a Bauhaus aesthetic, but underneath can be found strong regional influences.
Read more about the Gropius House
Year built: 1937
Architect: Walter Gropius
Location: Lincoln, Massachusetts
Must know: Walter Gropius, who had founded the influential Bauhaus School in Germany, emigrated to the United States in 1937. He taught at the Harvard Graduate School of Design in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and designed this house for his family in nearby Lincoln. Its ribbon windows and white surfaces express a Bauhaus aesthetic, but underneath can be found strong regional influences.
Read more about the Gropius House
Villa Mairea
Year built: 1939
Architect: Alvar Aalto
Location: Noormarkku, Finland
Must know: Finnish architect Alvar Aalto was given almost total freedom by Harry and Maire Gullichsen for the design of their summer home. Aalto, inspired by Frank Lloyd Wright’s Fallingwater (1939 – Aalto saw it in project form in journals), strove for a design that was Finnish but modern. The resulting two-story, L-shaped house is an idiosyncratic design that expresses what British architect Colin St. John Wilson called “the other tradition of modern architecture,” which placed humanism above ideology.
Read more about Villa Mairea
Year built: 1939
Architect: Alvar Aalto
Location: Noormarkku, Finland
Must know: Finnish architect Alvar Aalto was given almost total freedom by Harry and Maire Gullichsen for the design of their summer home. Aalto, inspired by Frank Lloyd Wright’s Fallingwater (1939 – Aalto saw it in project form in journals), strove for a design that was Finnish but modern. The resulting two-story, L-shaped house is an idiosyncratic design that expresses what British architect Colin St. John Wilson called “the other tradition of modern architecture,” which placed humanism above ideology.
Read more about Villa Mairea
Eames House, Case Study House No. 8
Year built: 1949
Architects: Charles and Ray Eames
Location: Pacific Palisades, California
Must know: Although this house/studio for designers Charles and Ray Eames is simply two rectangular volumes made of off-the-shelf steel structures and windows, it is a colourful expression of their design sensibility and a suitable backdrop for their collections and creations. It is also sensitively merged into the sloping site, showing that the house is as much about place as about universal modern ideals.
Read more about the Eames House
Year built: 1949
Architects: Charles and Ray Eames
Location: Pacific Palisades, California
Must know: Although this house/studio for designers Charles and Ray Eames is simply two rectangular volumes made of off-the-shelf steel structures and windows, it is a colourful expression of their design sensibility and a suitable backdrop for their collections and creations. It is also sensitively merged into the sloping site, showing that the house is as much about place as about universal modern ideals.
Read more about the Eames House
Glass House
Year built: 1949
Architect: Philip Johnson
Location: New Canaan, Connecticut
Must know: Philip Johnson was as much, if not more so, a proponent of architectural styles as a designer of them. He and Henry Russell Hitchcock, in their 1932 ‘International Style of Modern Architecture’ exhibition at MoMA, helped to define what people think modern architecture is, even to this day. His Glass House, influenced by Mies van der Rohe’s Farnsworth House (next) but completed two years before it, is the first of many structures Johnson designed and built on his New Canaan estate. Many of the later buildings embody other styles, but this house is explicitly and unabashedly Modern.
Read more about the Glass House
Year built: 1949
Architect: Philip Johnson
Location: New Canaan, Connecticut
Must know: Philip Johnson was as much, if not more so, a proponent of architectural styles as a designer of them. He and Henry Russell Hitchcock, in their 1932 ‘International Style of Modern Architecture’ exhibition at MoMA, helped to define what people think modern architecture is, even to this day. His Glass House, influenced by Mies van der Rohe’s Farnsworth House (next) but completed two years before it, is the first of many structures Johnson designed and built on his New Canaan estate. Many of the later buildings embody other styles, but this house is explicitly and unabashedly Modern.
Read more about the Glass House
Farnsworth House
Year built: 1951
Architect: Ludwig Mies van der Rohe
Location: Plano, Illinois
Must know: Like Walter Gropius, Mies van der Rohe emigrated to the United States before World War II, arriving in Chicago and heading the Illinois (then Armour) Institute of Technology. His influence on postwar architecture is massive, but mainly on the design of office towers and other urban buildings. Next to the Fox River, west of Chicago, he designed a raised glass box that turned out to be his last residential commission, after Edith Farnsworth sued her architect. She echoed van der Rohe’s famous dictum in her statement, “Less is not more. It is simply less!”
See more of the Farnsworth House
Year built: 1951
Architect: Ludwig Mies van der Rohe
Location: Plano, Illinois
Must know: Like Walter Gropius, Mies van der Rohe emigrated to the United States before World War II, arriving in Chicago and heading the Illinois (then Armour) Institute of Technology. His influence on postwar architecture is massive, but mainly on the design of office towers and other urban buildings. Next to the Fox River, west of Chicago, he designed a raised glass box that turned out to be his last residential commission, after Edith Farnsworth sued her architect. She echoed van der Rohe’s famous dictum in her statement, “Less is not more. It is simply less!”
See more of the Farnsworth House
The Audette House
Year built: 1953
Architect: Peter Muller
Location: Sydney, New South Wales
Must know: Peter Muller was another young Australian Mid-century architect. The Audette House, was his first commission as a qualified architect.
Although Muller’s design was heavily influenced by Frank Lloyd Wright, his choice of materials honoured the Australian environment. Copper, timber and stone all blend into the surrounding flora and fauna. The strong use of horizontal lines connect and integrate the home into the landscape.
TELL US
What have we missed? Which home do you think of first when you think of modern design?
MORE IDEABOOKS
Inspiring Mid-Century Australian Homes: 6 of the Best
So Your Style Is: Mid-Century Modern
Bring Palm Springs Mid-Century Modernism Into Your Home
Year built: 1953
Architect: Peter Muller
Location: Sydney, New South Wales
Must know: Peter Muller was another young Australian Mid-century architect. The Audette House, was his first commission as a qualified architect.
Although Muller’s design was heavily influenced by Frank Lloyd Wright, his choice of materials honoured the Australian environment. Copper, timber and stone all blend into the surrounding flora and fauna. The strong use of horizontal lines connect and integrate the home into the landscape.
TELL US
What have we missed? Which home do you think of first when you think of modern design?
MORE IDEABOOKS
Inspiring Mid-Century Australian Homes: 6 of the Best
So Your Style Is: Mid-Century Modern
Bring Palm Springs Mid-Century Modernism Into Your Home
Year built: 1908
Architect: Greene and Greene
Location: Pasadena, California
Must know: This house is a masterpiece of the Greene brothers’ synthesis of styles and means – Arts and Crafts, Art Nouveau, Japanese timber construction, bungalows. Many people are familiar with the house from the film ‘Back to the Future’, as its exterior served as Doc’s mansion (the interiors were filmed at a different Green and Greene house), but it deserves to be known by everybody on the merits of its well-crafted wood architecture, inside and out.
Read more about the Gamble House