COUNTRY SPECIALS - IT'S TIME TO PLAN THAT TRIP! | Now that our museum houses are gradually opening again as the lockdown relaxes, Iconic Houses is excited to welcome you to our country specials – designed to help you make the most of a daytrip or week(end) away, probably in your own country or not too far from home. Despite all the wonderful virtual tours, there is of course nothing like experiencing iconic houses in real life! Seeing, hearing, smelling and feeling their unique ambience - after three months of missing them, we can't wait to enjoy the real thing again!
Note: The new conditions vary greatly according to region and local risk. This means that spontaneous visits to house museums are a thing of the past. We advise you check carefully before you visit - in many cases visiting is only possible with an online reservation.
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| ICONIC DREAMS - SLEEP IN AN ICONIC HOUSE! | Always wanted to sleep in a museum? Now's your chance! Iconic Houses' members include museum homes that you can rent for a holiday. Imagine having one all to yourself, and getting to know it at your own pace. These houses have wonderful stories to tell. During a stay in one, you'll experience it almost exactly as the original residents did. Most were designed as weekend or holiday homes, meaning that architects didn’t need to be so practical and could focus on fun.
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| GERMAN GREATS | Belgian architect Henry van de Velde has three houses to his name out of the 11 superb member houses in Germany. Taut’s Home in Hufeisensiedlung is a Unesco World Heritage monument where you can spend the night. Germany’s hidden gem is Haus Schminke in Löbau, where you can also stay. Haus Auerbach in Jena is a private house that’s open for visits, while in Berlin Georg Kolbe’s house is a great example of the artist’s home and studio.
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| DUTCH DELIGHTS | From the Amsterdam School to Postmodernism, our Dutch members number 20 wonderful homes by Rietveld, J.J.P. Oud, Brinkman & Van der Vlugt and many more. Several are examples of social housing. The Rietveld Schröder House is a Unesco World Heritage monument, or spend the night in the Dijkstra House. The hidden gem is the private Van Schijndel House, open for visits by appointment, while the Wall House #2 is a great example of a conceptual home.
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| COMING SOON: SCANDINAVIA AND THE MEDITERRANEAN | If you can't wait for our next newsletter with its overview of all the masterpieces and hidden gems you can explore in the Mediterranean and Nordic countries, why not browse our map or search by country? Use the magnifying glass and enter the name of the country you wish to explore (always in English ;-). This is a fast way to get an overview of all member houses per country!
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| SAVING ICONS AT RISK | Our new initiative Icons at Risk strives to preserve the world’s most endangered architecturally important modern houses. We have so far listed 30 houses. Latest additions are the Kohlberg House on Cape Cod (saved by the Cape Cod Modern House Trust) and the Forrest Baker House in Vancouver (which the West Coast Modern League is trying to save). We have also added a list of other international and national Watch Lists.
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| ICONIC READS | Want to know more about our member icons? Here’s our round-up of the best books you can buy about the houses and house museums that make up our unique network of icons you can visit. They are listed in alphabetical order by names. If no monograph on the house is available, we’ve found the next best thing – a monograph about the architect that features a chapter on the house museum that you can find on our map.
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| ICON FOR SALE | Villa Henny is an icon of 20th-century Dutch architecture, and 100 years after it was built, the concrete design is still as solid as a rock. When the current owners saw the ‘For Sale’ sign in the garden in 1979, they were sold, and so was the house! After raising their children here and spending 40 happy years in this special place, they are putting the house up for sale - so a new owner will get the chance to live in this architectural gem!
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| DONATE | Like many non-profits, the Iconic Houses Foundation is in a precarious position due to Covid-19. Please donate if you appreciate of our work. Your donation will help us to continue bringing you news, to help modern house museums recover from this crisis, and to raise awareness about the emerging heritage of the 20th century. If you cannot donate in these uncertain times, there are other ways to help. Advocate for us by sharing our mission with family or friends. Even a quick social media mention would mean the world to us.
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| HELP US GROW | We want to reach 10K followers on Instagram and we have already reached 5K and counting! Please follow us and tag a friend. Iconic Houses is still bringing iconic inspiration on the channels you know and love, so be sure to also follow us on LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter and subscribe to our YouTube channel for even more peeks behind the scenes.
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