What is a modern design house?

Modernism thrived from the the early twentieth century through the 60’s (and later in the regional styles). There are many subsets or varaiations in residential modernism depending upon location and era. Check out the time line in the modernism category…

Esther McCoy in her bookFive California Architects quotes Rudolph Schindler from a manifesto that he wrote, “the old problems have been solved and the styles are dead….The architect has finally discovered the medium of his art: SPACE. A new architectural problem has been born.” She goes on to point out that Schindler first found space in Cubism and that Frank Lloyd Wright found it in the Japanese print. Another way of looking at it is illustrated by Marc Treib referring to William Wurster in his essay in An Everyday Modernism, "[Wurster's] sympathy always tended towards life within the house rather than the architectural shell that contained it." The idea of space, as opposed to mass, as an inspiration for design is often cited as one of modernism’s main principles. Another of it’s basic tenets was innovative choice and use of materials to free up structure.

Modern design homes reflect these ideas. They will have open floor plans, usually asymmetrical in arrangement, with spaces that flow into one another. A prominent indoor-outdoor relationship is essential and is often made possible by structural ingenuity. The houses have clean lines, surface planes without applied ornament, and simple shapes or forms in which structure is often directly expressed or exposed.