Pageturner - 21st Century House

The Age

Wednesday June 7, 2006

MIRANDA TAY

BOOK REVIEW: 21st Century House, By Jonathan Bell, Published by Laurence King

hardcover, rrp $59.95

A COMMON lament among many modern architects, half said in jest, half in all seriousness, is that the grand design looks great - until people move in. Users have become the spoilers, denizens without whose commission and dollars the house might not exist but whose presence invokes an irksome energy. This irony is not lost on the author. "The modern house in the media age is all about image; a flat representation in a magazine or on television, rather than a three-dimensional space to be explored, or heaven forbid, inhabited," he writes. And later, "All too often, actual living does not get a look-in."

This is a battle of fashion and function, transforming the contemporary house from abode into showcase. Yet the house is also the most enduring symbol of innovation and ethos, of individual expression and experimentation within a public, cultural sphere.

In this book, Jonathan Bell, who writes for Wallpaper*, Blueprint and Grafik, discusses changing typologies and condemns today's predilection for "event architecture". More than 50 big projects, including some from Australia, are assessed on practicality, technology, social and environmental obligations. There is no archetypal modern house, Bell concludes; instead there are many - the house as finite box, as wedge, as ellipsis, as grand pavilion. Each project is finely detailed with drawings, plans and photography, but it is Bell's authoritative exposition that makes this a comprehensive volume for both design professionals and lay readers. -- MIRANDA TAY