The Un-Private House

How would you build a house for a cyborg? The Un-Private House examines this and other questions confronting domestic architecture at the end of the century. Changes in family structure, shifting concepts of privacy and domesticity, the home as workplace, and the revolution in communications and media have created totally new relationships between exterior and interior worlds. Photographs, plans, and drawings present 26 projects by architectural firms in the United States, Europe, and Japan. Their innovations include spectacular new materials, including "smart skins" through which houses themselves transmit information, as well as new structural forms. The houses presented here, and their architects, are not only reconfiguring the domestic landscape but also launching the first architectural debates of the 21st century.

Rem Koolhaas was born in Rotterdam in 1944. In 1975 he founded the Office for Metropolitan Architecture (OMA), which has become one of todayis most renowned and radical architecture firms.

Jacques Herzog & Pierre de Meuron have had nearly parallel careers. They were born in 1950, in Basel, Switzerland, attended the same schools, and formed a partnership in 1978. Recipients of the 2001 Pritzker Architectural Prize, their most visible realized project to date is the Tate Modern, for which they transformed the giant Bankside power station in London into a suite of new galleries. Current works-in-progress include an expansion of the Walker Art Center, the New de Young Museum in San Francisco, and the Prada Headquarters and exhibition space in New York. A recent exhibition of their work was held at the Canadian Center for Architecture in Montreal.

A graduate of the Rhode Island School of Design and the Graduate School of Design at Harvard University, Michael Maltzan moved to Los Angeles in 1988 and joined the office of Frank Gehry. In 1995, he established his own architectural practice. He has designed private homes and educational spaces, mostly in the Los Angeles area, as well as other museum and public projects. His 1995 design of the Hergott/Shepard residence, Beverly Hills, was included in The Un-Private House at New York's Museum of Modern Art in 1999.