City Icons: Amsterdam - Don't Miss!

Festive City Icons Kick Off with Talk by Linda Vlassenrood

MORE MIES - Pure Architecture in Haus Lange Haus Esters

An Elementalist and Mediterranean Architecture

Through a Bauhaus Lens: Edith Tudor-Hart and Isokon

Modernism Week Lecture: 10 Years of Iconic Houses

Aluminaire House Grand Opening

Exhibition Icons of the Czech Avant-Garde

Icon for Sale - Loos Villa: Haus Horner

SPECIAL – Iconic Dreams Europe - Sleep in an Iconic House!

SPECIAL – German Greats!

SPECIAL - Vacances en France!

SPECIAL - Casas Icónicas en España!

SPECIAL – Dutch Delights!

SPECIAL – Iconic Artist Residencies

SPECIAL – Northern (High)Lights!

SPECIAL – Iconic Housing

SPECIAL – Women & Iconic Houses

Winy Wants a World Wonder

Welcome Atelier Volten!

Public Screenings and Private Streaming of Pioneers of the Dutch Modern House

Sleep in a Modernist Gem – Huis Billiet in Bruges

Iconic Houses in The Netherlands - 100 Years Van Zessen House

Exclusive Tour and Film Screening Package

The Last House Designed by Adolf Loos Will Be Built in Prague

Icons of the Czech Avantgarde

Icon for Sale - Casa Legorreta

Rietveld Day: 200 Enthusiasts Explored 3 Utrecht Icons

Hurray! 10 Years Iconic Houses

7th International Iconic Houses Conference A Huge Success

Meet Conference Co-Chair Iveta Černá

Meet Conference Co-Chair Maria Szadkowska

Eighteen Iconic Houses Under One Roof

17 June - 'Pioneers-film' Screening Amersfoort

Iconic Houses in The Netherlands - Van Eesteren House Museum

Welcome Margarete Schütte-Lihotzky Zentrum in Vienna!

Welcome Vila Volman! Jewel of Czech Functionalism

Movie Night: Adolf Loos- Revolutionary Among Architects

'Inside Iconic Houses' Case Study House #26 Webcast in Webshop

Inside Iconic Houses at Taut’s Home in Berlin

Rediscovering Forgotten Loos Interiors in Pilsen

'Inside Iconic Houses' - Online Tour Program

Iconic Houses in The Netherlands - The Diagoon House

Iconic Houses in The Netherlands - Rietveld Schröder House

Rietveld Houses Owners Association

Corberó Space: New Life for Hidden Jewel

Iconic Houses in The Netherlands - Pierre Cuypers' House and Workshops

Reeuwijk Celebrates Completion of Restoration Rietveld Homes!

Iconic Houses in The Netherlands - Van Doesburg Rinsema House

Welcome Rietveld's Van Daalen House!

Architect Harry Gessner Passed Away at 97

Watch Pioneers of the Dutch Modern House Now On Demand

Icon Saved: Dorchester Drive House

Welcome Umbrella House!

Iconic Houses in the Netherlands – Berlage’s Masterpiece

Iconic Houses in The Netherlands - Het Schip

Inside Iconic Houses - Tour of Maison Cazenave

Inside Iconic Houses Tours Vizcaya Museum & Gardens in Miami

Casa Masó Celebrates 10 Year Anniversary

Inside Iconic Houses tours Roland Reisley's Usonian Frank Lloyd Wright House

Rietveld’s Experimental Housing in Reeuwijk Saved

Serralves Villa after restoration

Portraits of the Architect - Interview with Gennaro Postiglione

Test Labs for New Ideas - Interview with Natascha Drabbe

Inside Iconic Houses - Isokon Building

Inside Iconic Houses - 16 December: Sunnylands with Janice Lyle

BCN-BXL Coderch-De Koninck - Beyond Time

New Chairman Architect Nanne de Ru on The Perfect Platform

Health and Home - Interview with Beatriz Colomina

A Life Less Ordinary – Interview with Valentijn Carbo

Invisible Women - Interview with Alice T. Friedman

Winy Maas on the Green Dip

Anita Blom on Experimental Housing of the 1970s

Women’s Worlds - Interview with Natalie Dubois

The Culture of Living - Interview with Robert von der Nahmer

Hetty Berens: A Fresh Take on Modernism

Niek Smit on Supporting Modern Heritage

Alice Roegholt on Amsterdam’s Working-Class Palaces

July is Iconic Houses Month

Hans van Heeswijk on The Pioneers of the Dutch Modern House

Wessel de Jonge on Dutch Icons at Risk

Save Maison Zilveli - Sign the Petition!

How a Building Tells a Story - Recorded Event

Toolkit for Owners of a Modern House

13 Aalto Sites Nominated for UNESCO World Heritage

Villa Beer At Risk - Sign the Petition!

Business Cards of Stone, Timber and Concrete in the Brussels Region 1830-1970

Exhibiting & Visiting Modernist Monuments

Fostering Well-Researched Responsible Design

ICONS AT RISK

Enjoy a virtual visit to the California House and a Q&A with architect Peter Gluck

Exhibition 'Modernism and Refuge'

A Hidden Gem of Postmodernism

New Centre for Historic Houses of India

An Online Chronicle of the Douglas House

Villa Henny, geometric style icon in The Netherlands

A Mendini temple in Amsterdam

IH-lectures USA & Canada Feb 2020 on Melnikov House

Sponsors and Friends

An Afternoon with the Glucks

Chandler McCoy on Making Modern Houses Sustainable

Catherine Croft: Getting Away from the Demolition Mentality in the UK

Patrick Weber on Discovering an Unknown Icon

Fiona Fisher on Iconic Interiors

Jocelyn Bouraly on Villa Cavrois

Mireia Massagué on finding success through a new kind of partnership

Danish Moderns – Looking Back at Our Mini-Seminar

Venturo house complements Exhibition Centre WeeGee’s offering

Lecture report: Remembering Richard Neutra

Hôtel Mezzara and the Guimard Museum project

We welcome 13 new members!

BREAKING NEWS: 8 Wright Sites Inscribed on Unesco World Heritage List!

LECTURE 29 August - Raymond Neutra: My Father and Frank Lloyd Wright

Iconic Reads

Our Badge of Honour

Iconic Houses End Year Message

City-ordered rebuild of landmark house stirs debate: Appropriate or overreach?

Kohlberg House Restoration in Progress

Planned Demolition of Rietveld Homes in Reeuwijk

Renovation Gili House in Crisis

An Iconic Saga

Restoring Eileen Gray’s Villa E-1027 and Clarifying the Controversies

Modernism on the East Coast

Iconic Houses in Latin America

Conference testimonials

House Tours May 2018 

Expert Meetings

Natascha Drabbe - Iconic Houses: The Next Chapter

Terence Riley -KEYNOTE SPEAKER- on Philip Johnson

New era for Villa E-1027 and Cap Moderne

Hilary Lewis on Philip Johnson and his Glass House

John Arbuckle on Great House Tours

William D. Earls on the Harvard Five in New Canaan

Stover Jenkins on Working for Philip Johnson

Frederick Noyes on his Father’s House

Scott Fellows and Craig Bassam on their Passion for Preservation

Jorge Liernur -KEYNOTE SPEAKER- on Latin American Modernism(s)

Fabio Grementieri on Modernism in Argentina

Catalina Corcuera Cabezut on Casa Luis Barragán

Renato Anelli on Lina Bo Bardi’s Casa de Vidro

Tim McClimon on Corporate Preservation

Amanda Nelson on Building Donor Relationships

John Bacon on Planned Giving

Jean-Paul Warmoes on the Art of Fundraising in America

Chandler McCoy on Why Less is More

Katherine Malone-France on Moving with the Times

Anne Mette Rahbæk on Philanthropic Investments and Preservation

Peter McMahon on Saving Modern Houses on Cape Cod

Toshiko Kinoshita on Japanese Modern Heritage Houses

Roland Reisley on Life in a Frank Lloyd Wright House

5th Iconic Houses Conference May 2018

Kristin Stone, Pasadena Tour Company

Restoring the past: The Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo Home Studio

Behind the Scenes: Hendrick de Keyser Association

Crosby Doe, Architecture for Sale

Latin America Special – Focus on Mexico

De Stijl in Drachten

Preserving the Nancarrow House-Studio

Meet the Friends - Nanne de Ru

Latin America Special – Focus on Brazil

Jan de Jong’s House is Latest Hendrick de Keyser Acquisition

Stay in a Belgian Modernist Masterpiece

In Berlin’s Modernist Network

Rietveld-Schröder House Celebrates De Stijl Anniversary

Meet Our New Foundation Board Members

Maintaining Aalto's Studio – Linoleum Conservation

Virtual Tour of a Papaverhof Home in 3D

Getty Grant for Villa E-1027

Plečnik House in Ljubljana

Iconic Dacha

Iconic Houses: A Bohemian Road Trip

Work in Progress: Capricho de Gaudí

11 Le Corbusier Homes now on Unesco World Heritage List

At home with Le Corbusier

Henry van de Velde’s Study in Haus Hohe Pappeln Restored

Lynda Waggoner reports

A Conference to Remember

4th International Iconic Houses Conference

Guest of Honor - Harry Gesner

Fallingwater: European Lecture Tour

Wright Plus 2016 Walk

Susan Macdonald, Getty Conservation Institute

John Mcllwee, Garcia House

Meet the Friends – Elisabeth Tostrup

Iconic Houses: The Story So Far

Willie van Burgsteden, designer Iconic Houses

Buff Kavelman, Philanthropic Advisor

Meet the Friends - Frederick Noyes

Sheridan Burke, GML Heritage

Meet the Friends - Raymond Neutra

Sidney Williams, Frey House

Franklin Vagnone and Deborah Ryan, Museum Anarchists

Meet the Friends - James Haefner

Toshiko Mori, architect

Malachi Connolly, Cape Cod Modern House Trust

Meet the Friends - Penny Sparke

Lucia Dewey Atwood, Eames House

Cory Buckner, Mutual Housing Site Office

Jeffrey Herr, Hollyhock House

Speaking Volumes: Building the Iconic Houses Library

Sarah Lorenzen, Neutra VDL Studio and Residences

Ted Bosley, Gamble House

Keeping It Modern - Getty Conservation Grants

Meet the Friends - Thomas Schönauer

Wim de Wit, Stanford University

Linda Dishman, Los Angeles Conservancy

Jesse Lattig, Pasadena Heritage

Join us in Los Angeles! Update

Work in Progress: Casa Vicens

Work in Progress: Van Wassenhove House

Work in Progress: Villa Cavrois

Work in Progress: The Pearlroth House

Conference calls!

Follow us!

Third Iconic Houses Conference a huge success

Conference House Tours Barcelona

Marta Lacambra, Fundació Catalunya-La Pedrera

Natascha Drabbe, Iconic Houses Foundation

Special speaker Oscar Tusquets

Jordi Tresserras, UNESCO Network ‘Culture, tourism and development’

Christen Obel, Utzon Foundation

Elena Ruiz Sastre, Casa Broner

Fernando Alvarez Prozorovich, La Ricarda

Tim Benton, Professor of Art History (Emeritus)

Susana Landrove, Docomomo Spain

Rossend Casanova, Casa Bloc

Conference Program 25 November 2014

Jordi Falgàs, Casa Rafael Masó

Documentary La Ricarda

Marga Viza, Casa Míla/La Pedrera

Celeste Adams, Frank Lloyd Wright Trust

Conference 25 November 2014 at La Pedrera

Henry Urbach, The Glass House

Victoria & Albert Museum London November 12

Tommi Lindh, new director of the Alvar Aalto Foundation and Museum

Iveta Černá, Villa Tugendhat

Lynda Waggoner, Fallingwater

Kimberli Meyer, MAK Center

Rent a house designed by Gerrit Rietveld

Barragán House on Screen

Gesamtkunstwerk – An Icon on the Move

Triennale der Moderne 27 September - 13 October 2013

Prestigious Art Nouveau mansions in Brussels open

September 14 + 15: Heritage Days in Paris

June's New Arrivals: Museum Apartments

Iconic Houses is now on Twitter and Facebook

Corbu’s Cabanon: Reconstruction and Lecture

Projekt Mies In Krefeld: Life-sized model of the Krefeld Clubhouse

New arrivals: Spain special

MAMO: Le Corbu’s ‘Park in the Sky’ open 12 June

Taut's Home wins Europa Nostra Award

Annual Wright Architectural Housewalk: 18 May

Frank Lloyd Wright Homes on Screen

Message from the Editor

Neutra’s House on Screen

Michel Richard, Fondation Le Corbusier

Symposium The Public and the Modern House

Melnikov House on Screen

Iconic Houses in the media

Message from the Editor

Round Table Review

Eileen Gray House on Screen

Copy Culture

At Home in the 20th Century

New 20th century Iconic Houses website launches

Philippe Bélaval, Centre des monuments nationaux

17 April 2020, latest update 1 October 2021

Watch Pioneers of the Dutch Modern House Now On Demand

Five Conference Modules in Webshop

How did progressive architecture develop in The Netherlands in the past hundred years and what have the residents of 'normal houses' gained from the wild experiments that the architects have sometimes carried out? We have put the strongest examples of innovative, avant-garde residential architecture in the spotlight for you in five online modules that can be purchased as modules through our WEBSHOP to watch on demand at your leisure.
These Iconic Houses Conference modules give context to the five below themes and provide insight into Dutch residential architecture of the 20th century for architecture enthusiasts, owners of modern homes, professional managers of modern museum houses, architects and heritage specialists.

Pioneers of the Dutch Modern House
The program consists of five modules of circa one and a half hours, each with a live-streamed keynote lecture and an episode of a new series of thematic videos in which twenty iconic houses across the Netherlands are discussed: from the Amsterdam School and De Stijl to Postmodernism, from Gerrit Rietveld to Mart van Schijndel and many others. There are also famous examples of social housing, an area in which the Netherlands was particularly rich.
Themes addressed in the live streamed lectures and video series include:

  • Hygiene and Health in the Modern Home
  • Palaces for the People
  • A Woman’s Place: Clients, Architects, Promoters
  • Experiments with Space
  • Home as Self-Portrait: Architect's Houses

The last module includes a House Tour of Penthouse West399 in Rotterdam, designed by architects Nanne & Nolly de Ru of Powerhouse Company for their own family.

Language: the lectures are in English, the thematic videoseries is Dutch spoken with English subtitles.

Curious about the program?
Check out our line-up of international speakers and our interviews with them here below.

Keynote Speakers and Expert Presenters of our Videoseries

2 September, 2021 - Module 1
Hygiene and Health in the Modern Home - Architecture in the Age of Pandemics
Beatriz Colomina is Howard Crosby Butler Professor of the History of Architecture at Princeton University. She writes and curates on questions of design, art, sexuality and media. Her books include Sexuality and Space, Privacy and Publicity: Modern Architecture as Mass Media, Domesticity at War, Manifesto Architecture: The Ghost of Mies and The Century of the Bed. Her latest book is X-Ray Architecture. She has curated a number of exhibitions including Playboy Architecture, and The 24/7 Bed. In 2016 she was chief curator with Mark Wigley of the third Istanbul Design Biennial. In 2018 she was made Honorary Doctor by the KTH Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm and 2020 she was awarded the Ada Louise Huxtable Prize for her contributions to the field of architecture.

Click here for our interview with Beatriz Colomina.


Thematic Video 1
Hygiene and Health in the Modern Home
Click here for the TEASER.
Presenter Hetty Berens, an architectural historian and curator at Het Nieuwe Instituut Rotterdam, is also responsible for the Sonneveld House in Rotterdam, which has been restored to its original 1930s glory. She is a board member of the Iconic Houses Foundation and Co-Chair of the 2021 conference. In her video she explains how improved hygiene made healthier homes in The Netherlands.

Houses that she presents in this episode are: 

Click here for our interview with Hetty Berens.


9 September, 2021 - Module 2
Palaces for the People
Valentijn Carbo is an architectural historian at the leading private trust for the preservation of historic houses in the Netherlands, the Hendrick de Keyser Association. He currently runs their ‘Museum Houses’ project. After his graduation at Utrecht University, Valentijn joined Museum Van Loon in Amsterdam as a curator. He currently runs the project ‘Museum Houses’. This ambitious project is opening and displaying 35 of the association’s most important houses.His role has been both practical and conceptual in setting up the project. Valentijn is a board member of the Dutch Interior Foundation and participates in the interior platform of the Cultural Heritage Agency of the Netherlands.

In his lecture, he explores social housing in The Netherlands, and the impact of the 'woningwet' ('Housing Act') of 1901.

Thematic Video 2
Palaces for the People
Click here for the TEASER.
Valentijn Carbo is also the presenter of the thematic video. In the Model Home of Museum Het Schip he explains what building for the masses in the 1920s and 50s looked like and connects the projects either by their differences or similarities. 

Houses featured in this episode are:

Click here for our interview with Valentijn Carbo.

16 September, 2021 - Module 3
Women as Influencers, Architects, and Clients in Modern Architecture and Design
Alice T. Friedman is an art historian and the Grace Slack McNeil Professor of the History of American Art and Co-Director of the Architecture Program at Wellesley College. She is also a curator, art critic, and author of Women and the Making of the Modern House. Her research and teaching focuses on modern architecture and the history of design in the United States. She is particularly interested in mid-century modern architecture, in the culture of the United States in the years following World War II. Broadly speaking, she is concerned with the social and cultural history of architecture, with an emphasis on issues of gender, patronage, and the history of taste, both in the United States and in Europe, 1750 to the present.

In her lecture, Friedman sheds light on Wright's Susan Lawrence Dana house, emphasizing the contributions of Marion Mahoney, Eleanor Raymond’s house for Natalie Hammond, and the Farnsworth House with a nod to Tugendhat and Lily Reich.

Click here for our interview with Alice T. Friedman.


Thematic Video 3
A Woman’s Place: Clients & Architects
Click here for the TEASER.
Presenter Natalie Dubois is curator of applied art and design at the Centraal Museum Utrecht. Among other things, she is responsible for the three Rietveld houses that are being managed by the museum. Natalie studied art history at the UvA (Amsterdam) and NYU (New York) and museology at the Reinwardt Academy (Amsterdam). 

In this episode Natalie tells us about the different and important roles that women played in the Netherlands: Helene Kröller-Müller as client, Truus Schröder-Schräder as co-designer and Lotte Stam-Beese as architect.
The significant houses with which they were involved and that are featured in this episode are: 

Click here for our interview with Natalie Dubois.

23 September, 2021 - Module 4
Experiments with Space
Anita Blom is an architectural historian and Senior Specialist in post-war architecture and urban planning at the Cultural Heritage Agency of the Netherlands and author and compiler of the book Experimental housing in the Netherlands 1968-1980. She currently heads the RCE’s 'Post 65 project', which examines ways of dealing with recent heritage. She researches in particular post-war residential areas; in addition, she promotes wider public interest for the Netherland’s post-war cultural heritage and stimulates the redevelopment of post-war areas. She is also the co-author of Post-war reconstruction the Netherlands. The future of a bright and brutal heritage.

In her lecture she talks about experimental housing of the 1970s.

Click here for our interview with Anita Blom.


Thematic Video 4
Experiments with Space
Click here for the TEASER
Robert von der Nahmer is an architect and the owner of the Diagoon House, an experimental home by Herman Hertzberger, and a member of Iconic Houses. A graduate of the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in The Hague and the Academy of Architecture and Urban Design in Rotterdam, he was an architect at Alkemade & Von der Nahmer and the multidisciplinary design agency ProForma while also teaching widely, including at the Academy of Architecture and Urban Design. He lives in the Diagoon House in Delft. His film is about the search for architectural and visual ways to guide and intensify our experience of space and time, and experiments involving these. It explores what in Dutch is called 'wooncultuur' – the culture of living in our homes.

The experimental houses that are featured in this episode are:

Click here for our interview with Robert von der Nahmer..

30 September, 2021 - Module 5
Home as Self-Portrait: Architect's Houses
Gennaro Postiglione is Professor in Interior Architecture at Politecnico di Milano and author of The Architect's Home (Taschen), – a topic he revisits as a keynote speaker at the online conference Pioneers of the Modern Dutch Modern House. His research field is domestic interiors culture, at the intersection between people, places, and practices, crossing architecture, ethnography, and material culture. The same theoretical background nourishes also his research by design activity addressed towards adaptive reuse of minor and/or neglected heritage. Recently, he has engaged in a research investigating dwelling practices with the goal to provide new housing solutions for contemporary extremely articulated and differentiated households. He understands research and teaching – and tries to be consistent with - as an integral part of design practice.

In his keynote address, Gennaro looks at the architect’s house as an interesting form of 3D self-reflection which is otherwise rare in the architect’s oeuvre. In all houses built by architects for themselves, you see a mix of character and ideas – which may or may not be in harmony with each other.

Click here for our interview with Gennaro Postiglione.


Thematic Video 5
Home as Self-Portrait: Architect's Houses
Click here for the TEASER.
Natascha Drabbe is the founder and executive director of the Iconic Houses network. She graduated in architectural history from Utrecht University and has published, curated, lectured and been a member of design and architecture juries at home and abroad. She was an international project manager at the Dutch Design Foundation (Premsela) from 2002 to 2006. In 2007, she set up the Mart van Schijndel Foundation, in order to keep that architect’s ideas alive and make his home in Utrecht available for guided tours, lectures and film screenings. This was followed by launch of the Iconic Houses Foundation in 2008 and the website iconichouses.org in 2012. International Iconic Houses conferences have been held in London, Barcelona, Los Angeles and New Canaan.

Houses that architects design for themselves are like test labs for new ideas. In the four houses that are central to this episode, we see the architects Van Ravesteyn, Jan de Jong, Mart van Schijndel and the Kortekaas artists duo putting their theories into practice down to the smallest detail. We also see what a challenge it is to build an experimental house with the small budget that architects usually have for their own homes. As a result, they often experiment with unorthodox, cheap building materials, which later leads to major restoration issues. Natascha lives in the Van Schijndel House in Utrecht.

Houses that are presented in this episode are: 

Click here for our interview with Natascha Drabbe.


Click on below photos for interviews with our keynote speakers.


Click on below photos for interviews with the experts in our videos.

The last module on 30 September was followed by a Live Stream House Tour of Penthouse West399 in Rotterdam, designed by architects Nanne & Nolly de Ru of Powerhouse Company for their own family.

Nanne de Ru

We talked to leading authorities on architecture in the Netherlands about the Dutch reinvention of the house in the 20th century.
Find our interviews with them here below.


Announcement IHC2023
The 2023 International Iconic Houses Conference will be one where the Iconic Houses community can meet again in person, like the 2018 edition that you see in the sizzle reel here below. Scheduled for 22-27 May 2023 and hosted by the ten member houses in Czech Republic with Villa Müller in Prague and Villa Tugendhat in Brno as the highlights and with a post-conference tour program 28-30 May 2023 to Ljubljana in Slovenia to see the work by Jože Plečnik, that was inscribed to the UNESCO World Heritage List in July this year. For a complete photo gallery of the 2018 edition, including the house tours, follow this link.

 


For a complete photo gallery of the 2018 conference follow this link.

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Latest update 1 October 2021