Peek Inside the Homes of Famous Architects and Designers

A new Phaidon design book Life Meets Art reveals the private quarters of bold name architects and designers like Norman Foster and Karim Rashid.

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October 30, 2020

By: Felicia Feaster

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Photo By: Courtesy of Karim Rashid Inc.

Photo By: Courtesy of Ordrupgaard Museum Finn

Photo By: David Hartwell

Photo By: Trevor Mein

Photo By: Phaidon

Photo By: Nigel Young / Foster+Partners

Photo By: The Modern House

Photo By: Courtesy of Mart van Schijndel Foundation

Photo By: Courtesy of Manitoga Russel Wright Design Center

Photo By: Anita Martinez Beijer

Photo By: Manuel Bougot

A Color Explosion

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.

The Original Scandi Look

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.

Learn More : Tour a Classic Nordic-Style Home in Iceland

Modernist Marvel

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.

Learn More : Tour the Kun House in Los Angeles

Open Range

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.

Creative Cribs

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.

Sail Away

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.

Good Times

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.

Light Box

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.

Captain of Industry

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.

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High Art

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.

Modern Oasis

Irish born modernist designer Eileen Gray was an architect, interior and furniture designer and contemporary of architect Le Corbusier and artist Seizo Sugawara. Her home on the French Riviera was a collaboration with Romanian architect and critic Jean Badovici, the pair dubbed "Villa E-1027", and her first building after years of working in interior design. Perched atop a cliff, the home features built-in furniture, floor-to-ceiling windows and a central spiral staircase.

Peek Inside the Homes of Famous Architects and Designers

Related To:

Shop This Look

A Color Explosion

The Original Scandi Look

Modernist Marvel

Open Range

Creative Cribs

Sail Away

Good Times

Light Box

Captain of Industry

High Art

Modern Oasis

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