Houses Architects Live In (Studio Vista, 1977; Penguin Books, 1978) by Barbara Plumb introduces a rich, illustrated selection of homes of leading international architects. The examples are by, for instance, Colin St. John Wilson and M.J. Long, James Lambeth, Christopher H. O. Owen, Charles W. Moore and many others.
Architects, unlike most of us, are willing to risk trying out experimental design concepts in the laboratories of their own houses. If these concepts work, practically and aesthetically, they eventually find their way, in one form or another, into the houses of the rest of us. Even if one could never conceive of actually living – day to day and with a family – in the same kind of environments that architects choose for themselves, their principles of design and their color choices are eminently re-expressible in one’s own preferred style. It is the inspiration, the freshness and the originality that count.
– Barbara Plumb, Introduction to Houses Architects Live In (Studio Vista, 1977), p.5
The text is in English. The book has been richly illustrated with photographs both in colour and black-and-white mostly of the interiors, and there are also some architectural drawings.
