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Adolf Loos' (1870-1933) house for entertainer Josephine Baker (1906-1975) never made it past the drawing the drawing board. Still, it seems to have become basic architectural info (partly) due to its explicit black-white facade.

The closest we'll ever get to seeing it built is b0b van Reeth's (b.1943) Van Roosmalen House (1985-1988) in Antwerp (Belgium), which I might even like more then the real deal. 

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The Rue Franklin Apartmets in Paris (1902-1904) is hands down Auguste Perret's (1874-1954) masterpiece. I've been told (it could also be a rumour) that Corbu lived here for a while. Strinkigly beautiful facade, too bad the interiors are off limits for visitors.

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Casa Rotunda a Stabio (1982) by Mario Botta (1943)

All the pics you want are here

                  [image here]

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Back from Germany a day later than expected, got great Mies pics but i'm saving them for Buckminster Knows # 100. 

For today I have something else in mind, Konstantin Melnikov's (1890-1974) Melnikov House (1929). I'm sure you've seen it before, as it has been published numerously. The house/atelier consists of two interlocking white cylinders, with walls pierced by dozens of hexagonal windows. The two volumes are linked by a spiral staircase, resulting in some wedge-shaped rooms. 

Melnikov lived here until his death, and it is only by chance that this building has survived, since it is located in one of the most wanted real estate areas in Moscow. 

The Melnikov House was restored to its original state by Konstantin's son in the 1980's. 

[image credits here]

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A masterpiece of 18th century urbanism. John Wood the Younger's (1728-82) Royal Crescent (1774) in Bath. Everything you need to know and see here.

[image credits here and here]

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I reckon the pics speak for themselves, John Lautner's (1911-1994) Arango house (1973)...

[image credits here and here]

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Jefferson's Monticello (1782) (little mountain in Italian) is one of the great presidential residences even though it was built before Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) was elected the third president of the United States of America. 

Monticello was built and remodeled over 58 years, starting in 1768. 

This residence is situated on top of a grassy peak and Jefferson, who was a self-taught architect and a great admirer of Palladio, based the plan on a cross-axial plan with emphasized horizontal wings. He also incorporated numerous gadgets like sliding doors, hidden closets and mechanical clocks.   

[image credits here]

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Short on time today, but I leave you in good hands... Wells Coates' (1895-1958) Isokon building (1934) in London. Enjoy.

[image credits here here and here]

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Arguably the most beautiful living room in the world... ladies and gentlemen: The Elrod House (1968) by John Lautner (1911-1994).

[image credits here and here]

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I know, the third cylindrical building in a row (it' s actually octagonal). I promise to post something else tomorrow. 

The Malin Residence (or Chemosphere), John Lautner's (1911-1994) masterpiece, was built in West-Hollywood for Leonard Malin, an aerospace engineer, in 1960. 

The impressive structure consists of a wood-beam skeleton-cage tied to a steel compression ring mounted on a 1,5 m wide cast-concrete column with eight steel supports to each vertices, while the entrance is solved by a skybridge. The house was renovated in 2001 for its new owner, publisher Bernard Taschen and Features dropped in 1960 because technologically impossible or too or too costly were reintroduced. 

Dymaxion House, anyone?  

[image credits at susi-a.blogspot.com]

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[image credits here here here]

I'm quite sure you all know this one, but I post it anyway because it has intrigued me since I first saw it years ago. Peter Eisenman (1932) once said: "I can not judge students whose work I don't understand"...well the same goes for me, after all these years I am still not sure I quite understand Peter's architecture, so who am I to judge him? (btw Peter is the first living architect I ever posted)

The following description was written by some professor at OregonU. 

House VI (1972-1975) represents and efficient method of construction. This house is constructed using primarily a post and beam system, with box beams and large dimension timbers forming the major elements of the structural system. The building is a study in the relationships between the actual structure and the architectural theory. Many of the forms that appear structural are actually included to reinforce the concepts behind the design. In his critique of the house, Robert Gutman wrote, "most of these columns have no role in supporting the building plan es, but are there, like the planes and the slits in the walls and ceilings that represent planes, to mark the geometry and rhythm of Eisenman's notational system." It was not Eisenman's intent to convey the actual structure, but rat her to allow the system to define a module, which is augmented by additional space defining forms.

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[image credits here]

In 1940, the Hungarian-born American architect Marcel Breuer (1902-1981) designed (in collaboration with his mentor Walter Gropius (1883-1969)) a small vacation house for Henry C. Chamberlain in Wayland, MA. Here the austere shapes of the Bauhaus style were modified by the use of a wood-frame exterior, a variation in keeping with native New England building tradition. The façade of this tiny structure has become an icon of the modern house, it demonstrates Marcel's uncanny eye for shape and was immortalized in the now-famous photograph above by Ezra Stoller (1915-2004). 

I'm currently reading Robert F. Gatje's Marcel Breuer: A Memoir (2000, New York), so I will probably post a couple more Breuer's soon. 

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The Gallaratese Housing Complex (1967-1973) by Aldo Rossi (1931-1997) was conceived as the second of several new communities planned in the Milan area to cover housing needs after WWII. This project was an instant success, the public and the critics embraced it and Aldo Rossi gained immediate worldwide fame thanks to a massive amount of publications. Gallaratese turned out to be a careful introduction to Post-Modernism, a return to an architecture heavily rooted in architectural history. 

Rossi's infamous writings critized the lack of understanding of the city in current architectural practices, and held that the city remembers our past through monuments, which give structure to the city. 

Aldo Rossi died in a car crash in Milan in 1997. 

   

Pictures found at housingprototypes.org

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Beautiful...for a brief moment imagine Giuseppe Terragni (1904-1943) would not have passed away at the age of 39...

pictures at vitruvio.ch