Peek Inside the Homes of Famous Architects and Designers

Internationally known industrial designer Karim Rashid, dubbed "the Prince of Plastic", is known for his Woopy Chair and the Bobble water flask and over 3,000 pop, colorful designs for companies like Umbra and Alessi, in addition to restaurants and subway stations. Unsurprisingly, his four-bedroom townhouse in New York City's Hell's Kitchen neighborhood is a study in high design and color. Rashid's is one of the many homes of creatives featured in the Phaidon book Life Meets Art: Inside the Homes of the World's Most Creative People.

Midcentury Danish architect and furniture designer Finn Juhl is known for introducing Danish Modern to an American audience. The Finn Juhl House north of Copenhagen, which he designed himself, is a light-filled space where Juhl's art collection, objects created by him and designer friends, and his organic, sensual furniture, take center stage.

A pillar of modernist architecture, Richard Neutra imprinted Southern California with his open, multifunctional style of architecture. His homes were owned by clients from early Hollywood film director Josef von Sternberg to novelist Ayn Rand. The Neutra VDL Research House is considered Neutra's most famous home, which is situated at the edge of LA's Silver Lake Reservoir, alongside a cluster of other midcentury homes, many of them designed by Neutra.

A well-known Australian contemporary architect, John Wardle created his weekend getaway Shearers Quarters on Bruny Island near Tasmania, with extensive views of the sea and the sheep farm where it is located. Partly covered in corrugated iron, the home is clad in golden cypress and in some cases recycled apple crates. It's a home where the movement of light over the course of the day, as it interacts with surfaces and windows, is a key element of the design.

From the Côte d'Azur home of French fashion designer Pierre Cardin, to Ralph Lauren's Bedford, New York, estate Oatlands, to midcentury modern designers Charles and Ray Eames' Eames House in Los Angeles, Life Meets Art: Inside the Homes of the World's Most Creative People is filled with the inspiring spaces of some high profile creatives.

World renowned architect Norman Foster created his personal home from 2002-2006 on France's Côte d'Azur out of a 1950s-era five-story tower. The dramatic, vertically open home is seven stories. The home's name "La Voile" (the sail) comes from the cable-supported canvas that shades the home and pool. A work by artist Richard Long can be seen rising up the levels of the home, on the right.

Artist and furniture and fashion designer Faye Toogood lives in a home in London's Highgate neighborhood built by Modernist architect Walter Segal. In the living room Toogood's geometric tapestry hangs above the sofa. The Roly-Poly Low coffee table is one of Toogood's iconic designs.

Dutch architect, interior, furniture and product designer Mart van Schijndel won the 1995 architecture award, the Rietveld Prize, for this Utrecht home dubbed "the house of air and light" for its many double height glass windows and interesting details like the granite sawtooth stairs on the right.

Industrial designer Russel Wright is famous for his biomorphic housewares and furnishings and especially for one of the most widely sold dinnerware sets in American history, American Modern, which debuted in 1939 and is known for its curvaceous silhouette. Wright's home Manitoga — taken from a Native American word meaning "place of great spirit" — on 75 acres in Garrison, New York, is a wonderful balance between nature and man-made, sited on an abandoned quarry and hillside with views of a waterfall and quarry pool.

Mexican muralist and architect Juan O'Gorman is known for the colorful murals that adorn many buildings in Mexico City, but also for his own 1933 home. Defined by a large interior courtyard and tall windows and Arte Moderne style, the home is currently owned by another artist, Paulina Parlange.