Where Architects Live II

An exhibition at the Salone del Mobile in Milan visits famous architects in their homes. Part II.

Our voyeuristic desire to see how others live, and how their houses are arranged, supports a home design industry that gathers annually in April near Milan to see the newest furnishings and most innovative products for kitchens and baths. The 2014   Salone Internazionale del Mobile also showcased a photography exhibition featuring the homes of eight world-renowned architects. We’re taking an look at those images this week in two parts. The homes of Zaha Hadid, Daniel Libeskind, Massimiliano and Doriana Fuksas, and David Chipperfield are included in part one of Where Architects Live. This is the second part. Overall, I must say it’s refreshing to see how simply these great architects live at home —- especially in contrast to the heavily layered houses we see in magazines and in photos online. Wasn’t it Mies van der Rohe who famously said “less is more?” So fitting.

Mario Bellini. Currently at work refurbishing the Brera Museum in Milan, Mario Bellini is, in a sense, Milan’s home-town architect in the exhibition. His personal space [above] is located in a 19th century building and designed around a pale green, 26-1/2 foot tall metal scaffold/staircase bolted to a Brobdingnagian bookcase.

The artist, seated high on the scaffold, uses the structure to access books in his library.

Wall and ceiling murals add color to the apartment, which has elegant herringbone wood floors and modern furnishings.

Bijoy Jain. Studio Mumbai suggests both a  working situation and a location. About 18 miles from Mumbai, in the town of Alibag, architect Bijoy Jain maintains an open house to a group of artisans, technicians and craftsmen that comprise his working studio and community. The reading room, [above] designed by Jain, is both elemental and with its stone floors, whitewashed brick walls, and tall ceiling represents a cool approach to living in a warm climate. Even the pets feel at home.

Indian wooden doors, with their carvings and substantial hardware, are especially lovely.

This well-worn Eames Lounge Chair and Ottoman anchor a restful corner of another room.

A patio offers a place to relax outdoors, under ancient trees.

Marcio  Kogan. In a building of his own design in Sao Paulo, Brazil, architect Marcio Kogan occupies the 12th floor with a wall of windows overlooking the city.

His award-winning practice, studioMK27, was founded in the 1980s and currently includes a team of 20 architects who develop projects from start to finish and whose work involves special attention to details and finishings, in keeping with the Brazilian modernist aesthetic.

In 2012, studio KM27 represented Brazil in the Venice Biennial of Architecture.

An architect with a collector’s heart, his home is chock full of carefully arranged objects. Kogan’s collections show a wonderful sense of humor. Kitsch such as Tweetie Bird and Cinderella figurines coexist with framed autographs, most notably one by Picasso.

A 2-burners cooktop is at work in the architect’s pocket-size kitchen, screened in by a textured glass partition that manages to let in abundant natural light.

Shigeru Ban. With offices in Tokyo, New York and Paris, Shigeru Ban travels extensively and has spent a good deal of time creating housing for refugees in Rwanda, and earthquake victims in Kobe, Japan. But he occupies an apartment in a building of his design [above] in the Hanegi Forest neighborhood of Tokyo which is something of a “treehouse.”

So as not to disturb vegetation on the site, the apartment house was constructed around the trees, leaving them free to grow at their own pace in the atrium.

An aerial view of the building shows other scooped out areas where nature and man-made housing harmonize.

A fascinating profile of Shigeru Ban was written several years ago by The New York Times Magazine by Michael Kimmelman who visited this house. In the article, Kimmelman embroiders elegantly on the visit and gives us insight into the design aesthetic and personality of the architect that explains the origin of his ideas that takes us well beyond the images alone.

(Source: Salone Internazionale del Mobile. Text notes by Francesca Molteni. Photo of Mario Bellini by Davide Pizzigoni, photo of Bijoy Jain by Studio Mumbai, photo of Marcio Kogan by Romulo Fialdini Architecture.)

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