Dear friends, for the next three weeks we would like to introduce you to Adam Štěch from the Czech Republic, who will be guest curating OfHouses starting from Monday March, 3rd up to Sunday March, 22nd. A design and architecture editor and curator based in Prague, Adam Štěch co-founded OKOLO creative collective in 2009 which explores the new paradigms for the creative industries. He edits the annual OKOLO magazine which he combines with publications such as ‘OKOLO Mollino’ on the Italian modernist master Carlo Mollino or ‘Radical Sitting’ for Depot Basel gallery. He has curated numerous exhibitions in London, Lodz, Prague, Bratislava, Milan, Vienna, Belgrade and Stockholm. Adam writes for international magazines such as Wallpaper* magazine, Cool Hunting, Domus, Mark magazine, A10 'New European Architecture', DAMn°magazine and Form. He also collaborated with Casa Mollino, Phillips de Pury, Sight Unseen and Architonic. His daily digital magazine can be found at www.okoloweb.cz. Adam has assembled for OfHouses a very consistent selection of residential projects for which he wrote this insightful introduction:
“In my curatorial selection for OfHouses I have focused on examples of European modernist residential architecture which I personally visited during the last six years. Seven houses from seven different countries - strongly individualistic approaches to residential architecture and, in most cases, regional interpretations of major architectural movements of the twentieth tried to capture the diversity of modern architecture and give examples that would create an imaginary timeline - from the functionalism of the mid 30s and the soft modernism of the 50s, to the brutalist and the organic examples of the 60s and 70s. These remarkable examples represent original, sometimes bizarre, interpretations of styles and movements and are certainly worthy of the international professional community's attention. All these houses are presented through original photos taken during the visits. Most of them have not been presented in the international press for some decades. Historically, the oldest example of my selection is the Gamerith house. It was built by the Austrian architect Ernst Plischke for the painter Walter Gamerith on the sunny slopes of Lake Attersee in 1934. It is a single-story building interpreting the period work of Le Corbusier and using his five points of modern architecture. Strip windows open the intimate residential building to the landscape, which is symbolically framed by the overhanging roof and the thin pillars built in front of the facade. The interior is fully lined with light wood to create a contrast with the white and stark exterior. The Gamerith house is one of the few buildings Plischke built in Austria before he left to New Zealand where, after the war, he became a pioneer of modernist architecture. Le Corbusier's ideas also inspired the debut of the British cult architect Patrick Gwynne who, among other things, is the author of the Serpentine Pavilion restaurant in London's Hyde Park. At the age of 25, he built a functionalist residence for his parents. Homewood, which is now also open to the public, later became his own home and a laboratory to test his original modernist concepts. The glass-enclosed residential block resting on brick piles opens to the landscape. The interior spaces of the house are artfully decorated with fashionable art-deco features, creating a highly eclectic environment where luxurious materials are combined in unexpected solutions. Gwynne became famous especially in the postwar years, when he focused on the design of artfully conceived luxury private residences. As a link between the prewar and postwar international functionalist style, I chose an intimate Swedish architectural masterpiece by Ralph Erskine. His Red House from 1941-1942, positioned in the wilderness near Stockholm, is one of the first implementations of his long successful career. It is a simple wooden box lined with red slats resembling traditional Swedish rural architecture. The entrance facade opens to the landscape of the rough northern forest. Inside, the architect combined minimalist functionalism with the simplicity and asceticism of the rustic style. The brick fireplace dominates the room furnished with simple wicker furniture. Erskine built this red forest chalet for him and his family. Later, during the 1960s, he built his own house and studio nearby. The first major project of the Belgian architect Jacques Dupuis is the Le Parador residence situated on the outskirts of Brussels and finished in 1948. Dupuis was heavily inspired by the modern Nordic Classicism of Erik Gunnar Asplund and his perfect synthesis of classical and modern influences. This elegant house for the family of his brother, doctor Paul-Victoire Dupuis, is conceived almost as a chateau, connected to the landscaped garden. On both the interior and exterior one can find historicizing details, such as decorative volute portals, abstract ceiling stucco or forging. Furniture and other equipment were designed by Dupuis as a part of a whole, its aristocratic elegance and French art deco style encountering modernist abbreviations. The house includes unique works of art like a fresco by the painter Georges Boulmanta or a metal statue of a dragon, referring to the profession of the client, but also built-in furniture, geometrically shaped storage systems and a surprising flipping bar. One of the most significant postwar architects of the Brittany region is Roger Le Flanchec (1915 - 1986), an outsider of modern architecture, inherently anti-academic and a futurist dreamer. His work is inspired by Le Corbusier as well as by Frank Lloyd Wright, Celtic mythology, prehistoric menhirs, marine flora or the fortification architecture so typical for the region. One of his masterpieces is the circular house Quéré, built in Ploumoguer between 1969 and 1973. The exterior of the house is characterized by a thick concrete circular structure with curved ribs and small window openings in between. The interior is completely subordinate to its central features. Individual rooms are loosely arranged in a row, with the main living space facing the sea. The interior also features custom elements such as lacquered wooden doors inspired by aircraft wings. In the center of the house is a circular atrium with bold sculptural concrete elements such as the rainwater spouts and the chimney’s funnel. Mario Galvagni's work still remains hidden in the shadow of Liguria’s mountains. At the beginning of the 1950s, he came to the city of Bergeggi and, together with the enlightened developer Pierino Tizzoni, proposed an experimental holiday resort for the Italian intellectual elite. Within ten years, the entire colony of wonderful vacation homes rooted their organic style very naturally with the surrounding landscape of the steep coastal slopes. Each of the more than thirty houses is different and its form and concept is based on interpreting the context. Later, during the 1960s, Galvagni decided to settle nearby his lifelong work. He bought an old country estate a few kilometers from the resort, close to Borgio Verezzi. Then, in the following years, he rebuilt this country house exploiting the organic futuristic style he mastered during his work in Torre del Mare. Designer, inventor and engineer Wolfgang Feierbach dedicated his entire life to the development of plastics and their use in design and architecture. His brand FG Design was founded in the mid 1960s in the small provincial town Altenstadt, near Frankfurt am Main in Germany. At the same time, he began to produce plastic furniture in contemporary organic pop-art style and began to develop a system for the construction of plastic prefabricated houses. His dream to develop industrially-manufactured homes ended up with only two examples realized for him. The first of these has plastic modules forming the facades of the first level, floating above the masonry constructed ground floor. It is now used as offices for the FG brand. In the second, more complex home, Wolfgang Feierbach lives with his wife until today. The interior surprises with the diverse and rich decorations combining Feierbach's furniture from the 1960s with his later creations, all with bold postmodern aesthetics.”