Architecture Now! Houses Volume 3: A Good Read - MidCentury - The guide to Modern furniture, Interiors and architecture

Architecture Now! Houses Volume 3

By Philip Jodidio

If Channel 4’s Grand Designs programmes get your architectural juices flowing then this book’s catalogue of architect-designed homes could be for you. The third book in Taschen’s popular Architecture Now! series takes readers on a world tour of cutting-edge homes.

Houses from as far afield as South America, China, Sri Lanka and Japan provide beautiful photographic material, elevation drawings and site plans as do some of the European choice homes that made the cut. This really is architectural eye candy to the highest order.

Although the homes featured are out of reach for many of us thanks to the current economic climate, the book still offers a satisfying array of properties for us to wistfully drool over on a Sunday afternoon as well as providing plenty of inspiration for anyone aspiring to bring a little more light into their own humble living quarters.

Among our favourites is a stunning single-story ‘weekend house’ that appears to hover over a cliff edge within the Chilean mountains; the concrete ‘Twin Houses’ built in Swiss woodland are perhaps a brutal answer to the semi-detached, and Sou Fujimoto’s 83m² structure in Japan, an unusual solution to the challenge of creating a family home in a densely populated urban setting, is suggested by the architect himself to be like “living in a tree”.

While no one style dominates the book, the author observes that contemporary architects are embracing an evolved form of Modernism, with the pastiche Postmodern seemingly banished to history. While materials and techniques have evolved, there are a surprising number of parallels with some of the great designs from the 20th century.

It’s noticeable that much of the furniture that sits within these awesome spaces is mid-century in its origin. The pared-back designs poetically echo the geometric architectural lines of the buildings – it’s almost as if the structures were built around them, reinforcing the timeless qualities of their designs.