By midyear, we wrote that millennials live in feeds, not in houses. What we meant is that the dream—or idea—of a home now seems to matter more than the house you actually live in. From home surveillance technologies that turn houses into content before they even become spaces, to the rising popularity of interior design and DIY, we spend more and more time looking at other people’s homes: on Pinterest, on TikTok, and on real estate websites (spoiler: they’re all way out of our budget).
This has given rise to genuine online fandoms around architect-designed homes, and attention grows around the absurd stories where big names in architecture meet big names in showbiz: Diane Keaton expertly restoring two houses designed by Lloyd Wright, and the saga of Kanye West, who first radically altered a Tadao Ando villa in Malibu and then put it on the market, losing millions in the process.
Domus therefore offers a roundup of the quirkiest (and most important) architect-designed homes that hit the market this year. Between the Frank Lloyd Wright craze sweeping TV shows and real estate, major modernist masterpieces cycling in and out of agency listings, and the uncertain fate of buildings tied to the most controversial periods in world history, boredom will be impossible.
The timeless elegance of Le Corbusier on the French Riviera
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Set within the coastal landscape of southern France, Le Corbusier designed this holiday villa for his friend and patron Hélène de Mandrot, blending the Modern Movement with vernacular architecture, rigorous geometries with traditional materials. Keep reading
Zaha Hadid’s futuristic penthouse in Miami’s newest skyscraper
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One Thousand Museum is one of the final projects designed by Zaha Hadid before her death, and now one of its most prestigious residences is on the market for $24 million. Keep reading
The Stahl House: a modernist icon in Los Angeles
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For the first time in its history, the most iconic of the Case Study Houses, Pierre Koenig’s masterpiece and “the most famous photograph of Los Angeles ever taken”, is on the market, listed at $25 million. Keep reading
Lacaton & Vassal’s bold “Poster House” in France
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With the polycarbonate greenhouse that extended the domestic space of Maison Latapie in Bordeaux, Pritzker Prize laureates Anne Lacaton and Jean-Philippe Vassal wrote a new chapter in contemporary architecture in 1993: now there is an unprecedented opportunity to live in it. Keep reading
Frank Lloyd Wright's house now in the Mississippi Museum of Art
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The Fountainhead residence, designed by the American architect in the late 1940s in Jackson, was sold for one million dollars to the largest modern art museum in Mississippi, which intends to turn it into a “house-museum.” Keep reading
The "Bubble House," one of the rare Space Age architectures in New York City
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Built in 1969 by architect Maurice Medcalfe, this completely out-of-context residence has become a New York icon. It is now for sale for more than $5 million. Keep reading
A monumental house by Mario Botta north of Milan
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Built at the turn of the millennium, the villa has all the unmistakable characteristics of projects designed by the Ticino-born architect. Keep reading
Paolo Portoghesi's home-studio for under 500 thousand euros
In Calcata, in the Lazio region, 200 square metres designed by the internationally renowned architect are on sale by Christie's International Real Estate for a derisory sum. Keep reading
Three Le Corbusier houses for sale, from the Molitor to the Unité d'Habitation
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Two of the legendary interlocking duplexes at the Unité d’Habitation, suspended between the city and the Mediterranean, and a double apartment in the celebrated Immeuble Molitor, where Le Corbusier himself had his home and studio in the capital, are now on the market. Keep reading
Mark Rothko’s former studio, now a luxury residential complex
The studio where the American artist created the paintings for the Rothko Chapel — one of the most important works of the 20th century — is on the market for $9.5 million. The building also has a connection to Elvis Presley. Keep reading