June's New Arrivals: Museum Apartments

FLTR Het Schip, De Kiefhoek, Van Eesteren Museum Apartment

Always wanted to know how your grandparents’ parents lived? At Iconic Houses, we don’t just limit ourselves to the extraordinary exclusive villas of wealthy private clients: museum apartments in experimental developments and social housing schemes reveal how the living arrangements of ordinary people evolved over the 20h century. There’s a definite trend towards opening more public housing and rental schemes to the public – residential complexes that were developed for workers and the middle classes, and that gave rise to new apartment typologies, becoming famous in the history of architecture and so ending up as apartment museums.

Last month, we showed two examples in Barcelona: La Pedrera and Casa Bloc. Le Corbusier’s Unité is of course a well-known example, and his own apartment in Paris is also part of a larger residential complex.

This month, we welcome as new arrival the Laubenganghäuser in the Siedlung Törten housing development in Dessau-Roßlau, developed by the Bauhaus school’s architecture department under the leadership of director Hannes Meyer in 1927. The Siedlungen (housing developments) in Weimar and Dessau are on Unesco’s World Heritage List and can be seen by appointment. Why not combine your visit with the fantastic programme of lectures and exhibitions that can be seen in the early autumn at the Triennale der Moderne in Dessau, Berlin and Weimar?

We also welcome some new museum apartment members from the Netherlands, including the Amsterdam School museum apartments, Het Schip and De Dageraad, as well as the recently opened Van Eesteren museum apartment in Amsterdam-West, the famous Kiefhoek neighbourhood by J.J.P Oud in Rotterdam and – the youngest member in this list – Piet Blom’s Cube Houses of 1984. One thing that they have in common is that they all welcome visitors (some by appointment only). Visit their websites and take a look.

Enjoy!

Natascha Drabbe
Iconic Houses Network

FLTR Cube House, Casa Bloc, Laubenganghäuser