Books
Book: The Iconic House
Books
Dominic Bradbury's latest monograph is a comprehensive trawl through the signature domestic structures of the last century, a pretty much definitive guide to the houses that have come to define 'modern architecture' for the masses. Photographed throughout by Richard Powers, this is a highly effective architectural primer, a century's worth of grand domestic commissions and personal projects.
The roll call of names is familiar - Lutyens, Corbusier, Saarinen, Chermayeff, Gropius, Neutra, Breuer, Eames, Johnson, Seidler, etc., etc. - chronicling the creation, export and application of international modernism to high-end domestic design, as it evolved from socially conscious mass market design into the de facto style of the enlightened patron.
If there's a thread that unites these buildings, it's the unity between space, form, furniture and art, with each house as much a testament to the client's power, wealth, ambitions and taste as the architects' own ambitions. Tasked with finding a signature structure for nearly every year of the century, the one hundred case studies are a catalogue of familiar - and not so familiar - forms. Powers captures domestic warmth and the patina of age, making the imagery a welcome alternative from the relentless gloss of the digital era. Study the floorplans, memorise the names and you'll be well equipped to pitch in with an informed comment on almost any aspect of domestic design, from deco through to minimal and beyond.
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The Iconic House: from 1900 to the Present, Dominic Bradbury, photographs by Richard Powers, Thames & Hudson, £35
- Website
- http://www.thameshudson.com
