TZ: The Adolf Loos Apartment and Gallery joins prestigious Iconic Houses Network

The Adolf Loos Apartment and Gallery joins prestigious Iconic Houses Network / Praha / září 2014

Adolf Loos Apartment and Gallery, (1927-1929), designed by architect Adolf Loos for Martha and Richard Hirsch recently joined the international Iconic Houses Network. The Adolf Loos Apartment and Gallery has been admitted to the prestigious Iconic Houses Network of architects’ houses that includes houses that have a significant meaning in modern architecture and are open to the public. A unique resource for travellers and lovers of 20th century homes is online at iconichouses.org. The website lists around 150 landmark houses from the 20th century by location, together with background information on their creators and related news stories. For Adolf Loos Apartment and Gallery, being part of the network means an important recognition and an important step in the international dissemination of the work of its architect Adolf Loos.

Life has become easier for fans of 20th century domestic architecture with the Iconic Houses website. With its handy map interface it identifies dozens of iconic modern houses around the world – most of them open to visitors and some even accommodating overnight guests. A high number of new submissions is expected, and to deal with these the network has developed stringent selection criteria. 'We only want to list the best of the bunch,' Drabbe says. The best include the unmissable big names like Fallingwater by Frank Lloyd Wright, the Schindler House, the Alvar Aalto House and Unesco-listed Villa Tugendhat by Mies van der Rohe, but visitors to IconicHouses.org can also discover hidden gems, such as Geoffrey Bawa’s Colombo residence in Sri Lanka, where travellers can also stay overnight.

The website is the initiative of Natascha Drabbe, architectural historian and owner and curator of the Van Schijndel House in the Netherlands. Finding herself in charge of an iconic home, she set out to find out about others. Her research led to the formation of the Iconic Houses Network, a group of modern house museum directors and curators, dedicated to preserving significant houses and sharing knowledge and expertise, and to the launch of the site. The website will be followed shortly by an app for the iPhone and iPad.

The Organizing Committee of the Network consists of Susanna Pettersson, former director of the Alvar Aalto Foundation; Lynda Waggoner, director of Fallingwater; Kimberli Meyer, director of the Mak Center at the Schindler House and Iveta Cerna, director of Villa Tugendhat. 'No resource existed before to help people locate and visit these unique houses,' says Drabbe. 'Now, if you’re visiting Paris, for example, our site allows you to see that you’re close to the only house Alvar Aalto built outside Finland. This information wasn’t so easy to come by before.'

By linking travel and 20th century houses, the Iconic Houses Network hopes that the new site will increase not only visitor numbers, but also the awareness of the difficulty of what Natascha Drabbe calls, ‘keeping these houses alive’ in times of scarce funding, understaffing and even, sometimes, the threat of demolition. 'Experiencing the houses is the most important thing,' she says. 'The Iconic Houses site wants to ensure that people can continue to do that.'