background
0%
Sound: Off
image
Back To Serhii Makhno blog

To live in a star: top-5 private homes by the most famous architects in the world

Private houses by famous architects are like children of star parents. Want it or not, your fate is difficult – from the very young age, thousands and millions of people watch your every move. You just want to see how children and grandchildren paint and tear wallpaper in the house, but in return your carpets are trampled by film crews of Hollywood movies. And when someone decides to sell you – news about it flies all around the world.

Palace for Khalisi

Recently a mansion Ennis in Los Angeles by Frank Lloyd Wright himself has been put up for sale. If there were any awards for homes at the Walk of Fame in Hollywood, it would certainly have its own star. Ennis was in a lot of films and TV-series, among them Twin Peaks and Blade Runner. In Game of ThronesEnnisis the palace of Deyneris in Mierin.

The house was built for a businessman Charles Ennis and his wife. Its construction is assembled from 27 000 empty textile blocks made of mixture of sand, gravel and granite, which are put onto the reinforcement. On both sides, they are decorated with relief patterns. The building itself is 560 sq m and is more like a palace than an ordinary house. High ceilings, stained-glass windows, long halls. Its dining room is decorated with a mosaic work by the architect himself.

In 2011, Ennis became the property of an American billionaire Ron Bjorkl, who bought it for 4.5 million dollars, despite the fact that the house was in a terrible condition after being badly damaged from the earthquake in the 1990s and continuous rains. He repaired the house, for which he had to pay another 17 million dollars. And now he is ready to part with the historical real estate for 23 million dollars.

image

Whispering with a waterfall

But no matter how many times Ennis appeared in Hollywood blockbusters, Wright’s most famous creation is the Fallingwater. It is located in the state of Pennsylvania and clearly proves that man and nature can live in harmony.

A wealthy businessman Edgar Kaufmann asked Frank Lloyd Wright to build a country residence – simple house with a view on the waterfall. Wright inspected the site and designed a house that the American Institute of Architecture later declared as “the best work of an American architect for all times”. It is an example of organic architecture, which Wright also began as a new direction of architecture. It is a harmonious fusion of man and nature with the help of design.

Repeating the natural relief of the surrounding rocks, Wright built a house over a waterfall in the form of several concrete trays. They do not violate the natural harmony, but inside you feel calm and safe.

Now it is a museum where collection of the Kaufmann family is exhibited. You can find there Audubon, Tiffany, Diego Riviera, Picasso and such Japanese artists as Hiroshige and Hokusai. It has been over 50 years of museum’s work and it has been visited by more than 2 million guests so far.

image

House made of glass, heart made of stone

“Glass House” by Mies van der Rohe is an architectural monument now and works as a museum. It can be also rented for wedding celebrations, receptions, photoshoots and filming. During one year, about 8,000 people visit it. 70 years ago, when the building was brand new, it became subject of a huge scandal, which was arranged by the customer of the project, surgeon Edith Farnsworth.

She admired creativity of the architect and did not interfere at all with the process. She asked Mies van der Rohe to build a country house, which she wanted to visit at the weekend to be “closer to nature”. And when in 1951 she received keys to the house, she refused to pay bills, sued the architect and always found time to give interviews criticizing the project.

In her opinion, the house turned out to be uncomfortable: only bathroom was closed from the eyes of passers-by, the rest of the rooms were looked through the windows from floor to ceiling. However, rumor has it, that the architect and his customer had romantic relationships and the broke us shortly before the end of the project. They say that Mies van der Rohe initiated the break-up. According to biographers, the architect reacted to the numerous criticisms ironically: “The lady thought that the house goes together with the architect.”

image

Ocean in every window

The fate of the next house, on the contrary, is like calm water. It was designed by the famous Japanese architect Tadao Ando for the owner of a large tire production company Pierre Prengier. If this villa was a hotel, question of possibility of the ocean view would be irrelevant, since the house is exposed to the Indian Ocean to the highest extent.

Pierre Prengier came to Sri Lanka as a tourist and stayed there forever. At first, he worked at a local factory, and then founded his own successful bus manufacturing business.

His house has three wings piled around the central patio. One wing is for the owners’ bedrooms, the second is for the art workshop of the businessman’s wife and a gallery. In the third there is a living room, a dining room, a terrace and a swimming pool. The last two wings are elongated rectangles, diverging at an angle of 45 degrees, so almost every room has an ocean view.

image

House with a sky view

Construction of the last house from our list has just been finished, and it became the world’s only private house supervised by Zaha Hadid (1950-2016) – the first woman to receive the Pritzker Prize. Capital Hill Residence is located in the Moscow region Barvikha and is made in a futuristic style.

Its owner is Vladislav Doronin, co-founder of the development company Capital Group. The idea of the house appeared 10 years ago during a personal meeting between businessman and architect.

“I told her that I wanted to wake up in the morning and see the blue sky. I didn’t want to see any neighbors, I wanted to feel free. And she instantly sketched the house on a napkin”, – Doronin says.

Yes, the house was raised to a height of 22 m with the help of the thin concrete “stalk”. On more than three thousand square meters, apart from living rooms and libraries, there are a nightclub, a swimming pool with SPA and a Japanese garden. For this house Doronin spent 140 million dollars.

image
image image

Media

discuss
a joint project

Leave a request
Leave a request

further
on MAKHNO Media

All media
image

Makhno Studio presents new project finalist of SBID

07.04.18

Serhii Makhno blog

image

Brands we all should have in mind: by the footsteps of iSaloni

08.05.18

Serhii Makhno blog

Drag