Ana Frois is a Portuguese architect and self-taught illustrator. Her drawings place together archetypal architectures with natural elements and small … [Read more...]
Archetypes and Free Plan: Orinda House by Charles W. Moore
Orinda House, also known as "Moore House" is located in a valley behind San Francisco, was designed by architect Charles W. Moore for himself and … [Read more...]
Alison and Peter Smithsons’ Upper Lawn Pavilion (also known as the “Solar pavilion”), 1959-1962
The Upper Lawn Pavilion (also known as the Solar pavilion) was Alison and Peter Smithsons’ weekend home in Wiltshire in the countryside in South-West … [Read more...]
Materializing Abstract Space: Project E-2, a House by Hiromi Fujii (1968-71)
Project E-2 (1968-1971) by Hiromi Fujii is an example of the Japanese architect's research on "neutral" architecture, one liberated from any burden of … [Read more...]
The Akatsuka House by Takamitsu Azuma, 1969
The Akatsuka House by Takamitsu Azuma was built in Osaka in 1969, a few years after the completion of the Tower House in Tokyo. The principles behind … [Read more...]
The Tower House by Takamitsu Azuma (1966)
Built in Tokyo in 1966, the Tower house by Japanese architect Takamitsu Azuma is developed around a staircase which distributes its six levels. The … [Read more...]
John Hejduk’s Diamond House A (1963-1967)
In 1962 architect and educator John Hejduk (1929-2000) started a six-year investigation on the architectural implications of the "diamond … [Read more...]
A “Palladian” Villa in Sweden: The Norrköping House by Sverre Fehn (1963-64)
The Norrköping Villa was designed by Norwegian architect Sverre Fehn in 1963-64 as a model architecture for an ideal family of four. The 150 m2 house … [Read more...]
A Prototypal House at the Bauhaus: The “Haus am Horn” by Georg Muche (1923)
The "Haus am Horn" is an experimental building erected and furnished as a part of the Weimar Bauhaus exhibition in the early summer of 1923 which had … [Read more...]
An Encounter with “Naked Space”: The Tanikawa House by Kazuo Shinohara
The second house Kazuo Shinohara designed for Japanese poet Shuntaro Tanikawa, lies in the mountains in Nagano prefecture. Built in 1974, this summer … [Read more...]
A Glimpse of Post-Metabolism: Two Houses by Toyokazu Watanabe
Suguiyama House and Nakano House (Standard House 001) are two residential projects designed by Toyokazu Watanabe (b. 1938) between 1979 and the … [Read more...]
Inhabiting a Three-Dimensional Grid: The “Railway Sleeper House” by Shin Takasuga
In 1970, Japanese architect Shin Takasuga designed a house in the middle of the forest on the Pacific Ocean's island of Miyake. Students of the New … [Read more...]
Travel Notes, Ettore Sottsass, Jr. (in: Terrazzo n°1, 1988)
This short, poetic article was originally published in the legendary magazine Terrazzo edited by Barbara Radice, in the very first number in … [Read more...]
“House Without Qualities” by O. M. Ungers (1995)
Haus III or the "House Without qualities" (Haus ohne Eigenschaften) is a late work by German architect Oswald Mathias Ungers which the architect … [Read more...]
Grid, No Corridors, No Open Floor: Casa Mora by Ábalos y Herreros
Casa Mora is an unbuilt project by Iñaki Ábalos y Juan Herreros, two Spanish architects who worked together from 1985 until 2008. (Cf another post … [Read more...]
Order and Failure: Wittgenstein’s Haus on Kundmangasse
In November 1925, Margaret Stonborough-Wittgenstein, sister of the Austrian philosopher, commissioned Austrian architect Paul Engelmann to design a … [Read more...]
Extended Sequence of Flowing Spaces: 33rd Lane (Geoffrey Bawa’s House in Colombo – Sri Lanka) – 1959-1970
Geoffrey Bawa’s house in Colombo (1959 - 1970) is an exercise in horizontal densification. The result of decades-old process of annexation of four … [Read more...]
“The house sees itself reflected in the office”: Abalos & Herreros’ Housing & City, Barcelona (1988)
Iñaki Ábalos and Juan Herreros established their well known architecture office in Madrid in 1984 and kept working together until they parted ways in … [Read more...]
Allan Wexler’s Axonometrics of the House (1979)
Some days ago we featured on Socks a set of cray landscape models by US architect, artist and teacher Allan Wexler. Today we focus on a smaller scale, … [Read more...]
The Plan is a Society of Rooms*: Goldenberg House by Louis Kahn (1959)
The Goldenberg House is a 1959 unbuilt project by Louis Kahn for an area in Montgomery County near Philadelphia. This work couples previous Kahn's … [Read more...]
“I do not draw plans, facades or sections”: Adolf Loos and the Villa Müller
Villa Müller in Prague was designed by architect Adolf Loos, assisted by architect Karel Lhota, in 1930 for František Müller and his wife, Milada … [Read more...]
Rooms in the Forest: Jan Szpakowicz’s House (1971)
The house Jan Szpakowicz designed and built for himself in 1971 deals with the Polish architect's will to inhabit the woods, merging the … [Read more...]
Adolf Loos, Tristan Tzara House, Paris (1925-1926)
The house for the Romanian poet and Dadaist Tristan Tzara and his wife, the painter Knitson, was designed and built by the Austrian architect Adolf … [Read more...]
